CONTACT: Christi N. Morgan, (850) 644-2788; cmorgan@law.fsu.edu
Ron Hartung, (850) 645-9205; ronald.hartung@med.fsu.edu

By Jill Elish
Sept. 4, 2009

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida State University’s colleges of law and medicine are among the Top 10 best in the nation for Hispanics, according to Hispanic Business magazine, which has published its annual rankings of graduate schools in the magazine’s September issue.

The College of Law was ranked third among the nation’s law schools, while the College of Medicine was ranked seventh among medical schools. This is the sixth year in a row that Florida State Law has been named in the Top 10. The College of Medicine was ranked 11th in 2008.

“The Florida State University colleges of law and medicine are at the forefront of recruiting and retaining Hispanic students, and we are pleased that Hispanic Business magazine has recognized these efforts and the high quality of education that these colleges offer,” said Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Lawrence G. Abele. “The success of these programs reflects the university’s commitment to excellence and dedication to encouraging a diverse community where all of our students can thrive.”

The magazine based its ranking on a variety of factors, including the percentage of full-time Hispanic faculty, services for Hispanic students, Hispanic recruitment efforts and retention rates, the percentage of Hispanic students enrolled and the school’s reputation as reflected in U.S. News & World Report. Florida State also has a significant network of highly successful Hispanic alumni.

“Although we have fewer Hispanic students than some other schools, a significant presence of Hispanics in the faculty and administration has helped us continue to climb in the Hispanic Business rankings,” said Law Dean Don Weidner. “We are thrilled that our superb academic reputation and dedication to the success of students from all backgrounds have earned us the No. 3 spot.”

Hispanics made up 8 percent of the law school’s student enrollment and received 27 of the 314 law degrees (9 percent) awarded to the Class of 2008. Fourteen percent of the full-time faculty was Hispanic.

At the College of Medicine, Hispanics made up 11 percent of the college’s student body and earned eight of the 58 medical degrees (14 percent) awarded in 2008. Four percent of the college’s full-time faculty was Hispanic.

“Our mission is to train exemplary physicians who will provide patient-centered care and eventually serve in underrepresented, rural and minority areas,’’ said Dr. John P. Fogarty, dean of the College of Medicine. “The best way to achieve this is to identify students who come from these communities and provide excellent role models and training experiences in those communities while here. We are pleased that our students here embrace that mission and have chosen FSU as their medical school.”

CONTACT:
Cathy Levenson
(850)-644-4122
cathy.levenson@med.fsu.edu

By Matthew Hunter
Sept. 23, 2009

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Whether it is a biochemistry student who is researching bactericidal therapies, or a student who is studying differences in cultural music from around the world, Florida State University undergraduate students are performing the kinds of advanced research usually reserved for graduate students and faculty.

The Division of Undergraduate Studies will showcase the work of its best and brightest undergraduate students at the Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Award Symposium from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 29, at the College of Medicine.

“It is truly inspiring to see the outstanding work that these students are doing,” said Dean of Undergraduate Studies Karen Laughlin. “I am delighted to have this opportunity to showcase both the achievements of the student presenters and the wonderful support that they are receiving from their faculty mentors.”

“The symposium showcases research conducted by some of the most talented undergraduate scholars at Florida State University,” said Craig Filar, the director of the Office of National Fellowships, which is sponsoring the symposium along with the Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (URACE).

The symposium will feature oral presentations by 13 undergraduate students who were awarded $4,000 from the Office of National Fellowships to complete a summer research project under the direction of a faculty member. They will give presentations describing their work in rooms 1301 and 1302 starting at 6:30 p.m.

In addition, 15 students who received the Mentored Research and Creative Endeavors award, which is awarded through the URACE in the amount of $1,000, will give poster presentations throughout the evening, starting at 5:30. These students also conducted research in partnership with faculty.

“We find that having research experience sets our students apart from the crowd,” said Cathy Levenson, the Director of URACE. “Whether a student wants to go to graduate school, professional school, or begin their career right away, having research experience is an asset because it teaches them to think critically, ask new questions, and solve problems.

CONTACT: Ron Hartung
(850) 645-9205
ronald.hartung@med.fsu.edu

By Ron Hartung
Sept. 29, 2009

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Three students who have been accepted into The Florida State University College of

Dr. Myra Hurt

Dr. Robert Campbell

Medicine’s Class of 2014 are the first ever admitted through a unique FSU honors program that targets talented high-school students interested in careers in medicine and nurtures them through their undergraduate years.

They are Keerti Dantuluri, 21, of Palm Harbor, majoring in biological science and Spanish; Joseph Hernandez, 21, of Fort Myers, majoring in biological science; and Judy Lin, 20, of Tallahassee, majoring in biochemistry and on track to earn her bachelor’s degree after just three years.

They were recruited out of high school for the Honors Medical Scholars Program, which opens the door for early admission to the College of Medicine and makes it possible in some cases to earn a bachelor’s and a medical degree in seven years.

“Through their talent and perseverance, these students are fulfilling the hopes we had when we started this program,” said Myra Hurt, the College of Medicine’s senior associate dean for research and graduate programs. She created the program in conjunction with FSU's Honors Program and hopes it will continue to attract top-notch students committed to the college’s mission: providing health care that is patient-centered and responsive to community needs.

In order to apply to this highly competitive program, graduating high-school seniors must first be admitted to FSU and its Honors Program. Interested applicants must apply for fall 2010 undergraduate admission to FSU by Oct. 14 to be considered. For more information, visit http://honors.fsu.edu/medical.html.

“We want the brightest students that FSU has to offer,” said Rob Campbell, the College of Medicine’s assistant dean for student affairs, who oversees the program. “In our selection process, though, we also look at service. We put a very strong emphasis on our mission. It’s exciting how many of these students want to do either rural or underserved patient care.”

Last year the Honors Medical Scholars did 10 community-service projects, including a medical mission trip to Peru, Campbell said.

The program now has 31 students, many from the Panhandle. The number of applications has soared from six in the first year to more than 80 last year. Those who are accepted into the Honors Medical Scholars Program aren’t guaranteed they’ll get into medical school. They need an overall GPA of at least 3.5 and a score of at least 26 on the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), among other requirements.

As undergraduates, they take part in the Honors Medical Scholars Seminar and a mentorship program, take premed prerequisites and participate in premed organizations and medical/community volunteer activities.

“We prepare them to be able to go to any med school and apply,” Campbell said. “But we want them to come here, of course.”

CONTACT: Doug Carlson
(850) 645-1255
doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu

By Meredith Fraser
Sept. 29, 2009

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- For the third year in a row, The Florida State University’s College of Medicine ranks among the top five schools in the United States for percentage of graduates choosing to specialize in family medicine, according to an American Academy of Family Physicians annual report.

Over a three-year period, 16.8 percent of FSU College of Medicine graduates entered family-medicine residencies. That meant FSU was tied for a ranking of fourth in the nation. The University of North Dakota claimed the top spot, with 20.3 percent. The next-highest Florida school was the University of South Florida, ranked 65th, with 8.0 percent.

“We remain proud of our high ranking but recognize the need to do much more in order to meet the health care needs of Floridians,” said Daniel Van Durme, M.D., chair of the department of family medicine and rural health. “All of the scientific evidence shows that populations with a strong primary care base of health care have much better health outcomes, and that is certainly what we all want for ourselves and our communities.”

The AAFP tracks the success of U.S. allopathic and osteopathic medical schools in producing doctors who choose family medicine residencies, and the medical journal Family Medicine publishes the numbers annually. The percentage of graduating U.S. medical students entering family medicine residencies declined again over the latest three-year period of study, continuing a slight downward trend.

Among factors the report cited in the declining number of graduates entering primary care are lower pay than other specialties, less control over work hours, the cost of malpractice insurance and student debt.

“In spite of the modest tuition and costs of a medical education here at Florida State University, we are still seeing our graduates complete their training with an average debt of $145,000,” said John Fogarty, M.D., dean of the College of Medicine. “To ensure that we produce the kind of doctors Florida needs most, it is critical that we have loan repayment opportunities for students choosing to go into primary care specialties or underserved areas.

Addressing reimbursement inequities and valuing the role of the primary care physician in providing a medical home for patients will, in the long run, reduce overall medical costs and improve quality.”

The FSU College of Medicine uses outreach programs and mission-based admissions policies in an attempt to identify and prepare more students likely to work in primary care. Through five graduating classes, roughly 60 percent of the college’s graduates have entered primary care, which includes family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics and obstetrics/gynecology. Of the first 21 College of Medicine graduates to complete residency training and enter practice, 10 are now primary care physicians in Florida, six of them in rural areas.

Blaber's lab developed mutant protein that may soon aid patients with chronic heart disease

By Meredith Fraser
October 2009

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A Florida State University College of Medicine biomedical sciences professor has been recognized as having one of the most influential structural biology laboratories in the world.

Michael Blaber has been named No. 36 in a ranking of top scientists in the field of structural biology by the Ion Channel Media Group, a media and publishing company that controls more than 50 internet portals geared toward professional scientists and business people. The rankings reflect how relevant a lab's work is to the worldwide scientific research community, based on the number of citations and downloads from online databases PubMed Central Database and the Protein Data Bank. Each article's publication date also played a role in the rankings formula. To view the rankings, visit http://www.molecularstructure.org.

Blaber, who earned an international patent Sept. 29 for his development of a mutant protein that may soon aid patients with chronic heart disease, is in good company with his lab's ranking. Blaber's neighbors on the list include Nobel laureates Johann Deisenhofer (No. 31) and Robert Huber (No. 34); Wolf Prize winner Ada Yonath (No. 38); and myriad members of the International Academy of Science.

"The CEO of the company (ICMG) contacted me saying that they'd established this database and that our name was included in there," Blaber said. "I was pretty surprised."

The media group's ranking has not been the only measure of Blaber's achievement this past year. He has received grant awards from the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association, for $219,000 and $264,000, respectively. In addition, at the end of August Blaber accepted the E.K. Frey-E. Werle Commemorative Gold Medal in Munich, Germany, for his work with kallikrein proteins. The medal honors scientists who have made outstanding contributions to understanding the role of the kallikrein-kinin system and who have had significant influence over related health and disease research.

Despite Blaber's success in various subfields of biomedical science, it's mostly his work on protein mutations that led to the lab's ranking. Blaber originally began studying the FGF-1 protein structure (a protein important to the human body) in 1994, when he arrived at FSU's Department of Chemistry. Since then, Blaber has focused on manipulating the protein's basic structure into mutations of itself, in an effort to create a protein that has all of FGF-1's useful qualities yet without stability issues.

"I think our ranking would be based upon the sum total of all the structures we've deposited in the structural protein data bank," Blaber said. "And I would think part of the reason why we're on that list is because of the productivity we've had over the years, in addition to the interest in the individual structures that we've solved."

In September, Blaber received a patent on the first of his lab's successful mutant proteins, first constructed in 2005. These mutants may soon provide a treatment for heart disease patients who would not benefit from bypass surgery or an angioplasty procedure. Currently, those heart patients have no alternative, and essentially they are sent home helplessly facing their looming death.

But now, with the patent, the lengthy clinical trials process can soon get under way. The therapy, called therapeutic coronary angiogenesis, involves an FGF-1 mutant being injected into the specific areas of a patient's heart that house the thorny blockages that elude traditional treatment. The mutants cause the patient's body to grow new blood vessels, which strengthen blood flow.

Blaber's lab has produced several other FGF-1 mutants that are in the process of being patented. One company, Cardiovascular Biotherapeutics, has shown interest in distributing these proteins, but that process can get off the ground much easier when more of the patents come through, according to Blaber. The process takes years, but the first patent inspires hope that further developments will be in the project's not-too-distant future

CONTACT: Meredith Fraser
850-645-8696
meredith.fraser@med.fsu.edu

By Meredith Fraser
October 2009

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.-- One way to address the nation’s increasing shortage of primary care doctors is to give medical students a financial incentive to practice medicine where the need is greatest. Two Florida State University College of Medicine students just got the strongest incentive of all: a scholarship that covers the entire cost of their remaining time in medical school.

Fourth-year student Tanya Anim and third-year student Komal D’Souza received National Health Service Corps Scholarships for one and two years respectively. The scholarship covers all tuition and fees and includes a monthly stipend of almost $1,300. In exchange, both students must serve at least two years in an area designated by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration as “medically underserved.” Florida is among the states with the most such areas. In fact, 251 areas in the state have a high need for primary care doctors.

“Serving the underserved was the reason I decided to become a physician and the reason I chose the Florida State University College of Medicine,” said Anim, who earlier this year was named National Family Medicine Interest Group coordinator by the American Academy of Family Physicians.

D’Souza is still deciding the primary care field she will pursue. She is completing her family medicine rotation in Immokalee, Fla., where she has learned “so much about providing compassionate, high-quality health care in a community with limited resources.”

In 2000, the Florida Legislature established the medical school with a specific mission: to produce patient-focused primary care physicians who would respond to their community’s needs, especially the needs of the underserved.

“Since the scholarships are designed to attract students to serve in underserved physician-shortage areas, they are entirely consistent with our mission,” said John Fogarty, M.D., dean of the College of Medicine. “We know that medical student debt is one of the barriers to students choosing primary care fields or serving in rural areas, so these scholarships will help in both regards.”

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates the nation needs 16,585 more medical practitioners to fill its current need — a deficit that will only continue to grow, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Anim and D’Souza both said they felt honored and grateful to be among the latest recipients of the competitive scholarship. A National Health Service Corps representative said that, on average, one out of every 40 medical students who apply receives an NHSC scholarship.

“It speaks highly of our College of Medicine in attracting these types of dedicated students,” said Daniel Van Durme, M.D., chair of the medical school’s Department of Family Medicine and Rural Health. “They will be the ones who are instrumental in helping us fulfill our mission.”

For more information, visit

http://nhsc.hrsa.gov/about/facts.htm

CONTACT: Les Beitsch
(850) 645-1830
les.beitsch@med.fsu.edu

By Ron Hartung
October 2009

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The Florida State University College of Medicine is using its statewide network of clinical faculty to study better ways to equip primary-care physicians to help patients stop smoking.

Andrée Aubrey, MSW, LCSW

Leslie M Beitsch M.D., J.D

The 12-month project is being conducted by Andrée Aubrey, director of the Area Health Education Center located at the college, and Les Beitsch, M.D., the college’s associate dean for health affairs, through a contract with the Florida Department of Health.

“This is an important project for the health of all Floridians,” said Mike Muszynski, M.D., the college’s regional campus dean for clinical research. “It is also the first study of its kind to test the effectiveness of a novel educational approach in training community physicians on the most effective tobacco-cessation methods for their patients. Should this prove as effective as expected, it will also lay the groundwork for similar evidence-based medical care approaches utilizing the College of Medicine’s statewide Clinical Research Network.”

The College of Medicine has campuses in six cities: Daytona Beach, Fort Pierce, Orlando, Pensacola, Sarasota and Tallahassee. Physicians who practice in each of those cities teach the FSU medical students. Out of those 1,500 physicians, researchers aim to get about 75 who are in family medicine, general internal medicine or geriatric medicine to participate in this project. Project researchers have sent a brief survey to the targeted clinical faculty.

“Physicians want to help their patients quit smoking,” Aubrey said. “They just need help in knowing how.”

In “Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services notes that physicians are in a great position to help: Most smokers see a physician or other health professional every year; most want to quit; and most pay attention to what physicians say. “Unfortunately,” the department guidelines note, “clinicians and health systems do not capitalize on this opportunity consistently.”

This project is designed to determine the effectiveness of an approach called academic detailing. Instead of attending an educational seminar, Aubrey explained, the physicians will receive onsite training from certified tobacco-cessation specialists. Everything will be tailored to that individual practice.

The ultimate goal is to have fewer people smoking. Each year in the U.S., tobacco use accounts for more than 435,000 deaths.

CONTACT: Ron Hartung
(850) 645-9205; ronald.hartung@med.fsu.edu

By Ron Hartung
October 2009

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A Florida State University College of Medicine researcher has been awarded two separate grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) totaling $2.4 million to continue her work in detecting autism in children as young as 18 months.

Amy Wetherby is director of the Autism Institute in the College of Medicine. For a decade her FIRST WORDS® Project has screened children to identify early red flags of various autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Among those red flags are a child’s reluctance to look at the face or eyes of others; a delay in the use of gestures, sounds and words; a tendency not to share excitement or interests; and a fixation on certain objects.

The younger the child, the more subtle the red flags but the greater the chances of working with the family to lessen the negative effects. People with autism can have many strengths, Wetherby said, citing Albert Einstein as a prime example. For some people, however, autism is a severe disability.

“The symptoms themselves can actually impair learning,” Wetherby said. “Just like cancer, the earlier we can catch it, the far better the outcomes.”

In the United States, she said, most children who have autism are usually not identified until somewhere between ages 3 and 5. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends screening children between ages 18 and 24 months. The problem, Wetherby said, is that there is no well-validated, ASD-specific screener for that age group for use in pediatric settings.

A $1.9 million, two-year grant from the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development will fund research that aims to develop such a screener. Wetherby’s collaborators are Eva Petkova at the New York University Child Study Center and Catherine Lord at the University of Michigan Autism and Communication Disorders Center.

A total of 600 children will participate. The researchers will study several different screening and evaluation measures that they developed. Some are designed to help parents detect red flags of ASD. Other are designed to help pediatricians and other professionals.

“By improving and streamlining early screening and diagnosis of ASD in 18- to 24-month-old children, the findings of this study will have important implications for earlier access to intervention,” the grant proposal stated.

Sometimes a screening tool that works well in one culture does not work as well in another. Wetherby’s two-year grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, which totals more than $465,000, will fund research that may lead to culturally sensitive screening and evaluation methods.

Children of African-American and Latino families in the United States, she said, are usually not diagnosed with autism until they’re 4 to 6 years old, a full year later than other children.

“We’re trying to address that disparity by studying cultural differences in the early signs of autism,” Wetherby said.

Researchers will compare children of Latino immigrants in Immokalee, Fla., with children from the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa and children from Leon County, Fla. The College of Medicine has a health education site in Immokalee, and a former doctoral student of Wetherby’s, Nola Chambers, lives in South Africa. Richard Grinker, an anthropologist from George Washington University, is also a collaborator.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided the funding for the NIH grants. None of this stimulus money will be spent in Africa, Wetherby said, but in the United States it will pay for researchers and will pay families $50 for participating in assessments. Wetherby thinks it’s a good investment.

“Now we have this big chunk of money that is going to help us accelerate our findings,” she said, “which is really the idea of the stimulus money -- to use it to accelerate science.”

Both grants are funded through Aug. 31, 2011. For more information on the FIRST WORDS® Project, visit http://firstwords.fsu.edu.

CONTACT: Doug Carlson
(850) 645-1255 or (850) 694-3735
doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu

By Doug Carlson
October 2009

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A Florida State University College of Medicine researcher has solved a century-old mystery about proteins that play a vital role in the transfer of the human genetic code from one cell to another. The discovery could lead to finding new ways to help the body fight a variety of diseases, including cancer.

For more than a hundred years, the best scientific evidence supported a belief that histones -- responsible for packaging DNA inside the nucleus of cells -- are highly stable proteins not rapidly degraded by the body. Yet, researchers have not previously been able to explain why free histones, if they are not degraded as other proteins are, do not accumulate in large amounts within human cells.

Akash Gunjan, an assistant professor in the department of biomedical sciences, has found evidence supporting his hypothesis that there actually are two pools of histones: one used in packaging DNA that is very stable and remains in the cell for more than a year in some cases and the other made in excess by the cells to ensure that enough histones are available for packaging the DNA. Not having enough histones results in cell death. Those excess histones, Gunjan suggests, are rapidly degraded as are other proteins.

The discovery is important because it sheds light on the way the body is able to regulate proteins for various complex tasks. Such knowledge may allow scientists to learn how to manipulate protein regulation to fight cancerous cells and thwart other disease processes. Gunjan and co-authors Rakesh Kumar Singh, Marie-Helene Miquel Kabbaj and Johanna Paik, all from the College of Medicine, published their findings in the journal Nature Cell Biology.

“This has major ramifications for all the different things the DNA does,” Gunjan said. “Because if DNA contains genes and DNA is packaged around histones, then histones are at the most fundamental level regulating whether those genes are turned on or off.”

If scientists are able to determine how genes for cancer and other diseases are turned on or off, it might lead to ways to help the body rid itself of or better control disease.

For decades scientists have been captivated by the way the body selectively uses proteins in essential functions, storing or disposing of them when they are not needed. For example, eating a hamburger requires a certain set of enzyme proteins for digestion. If the enzymes are not deactivated or degraded following digestion, the consequences would be disastrous.

“They’ll start to digest things you do not want them to digest,” Gunjan said. “After finishing your hamburger, if these enzymes started digesting proteins in your intestines, in your stomach wall and so on, that would not be a good thing.”

To manage proteins when they are not needed, the body naturally degrades them through a process known as proteolysis. Histones in most cases, however, must be preserved for long periods of time because they make it possible to fold strands of DNA measuring about 3 feet in length within the microscopic nucleus of a typical human cell. Histones used in that process must be able to avoid degradation to preserve the body’s ability to pass on its genetic code from cell to cell.

Histones, the first proteins to be purified, have been a topic of research by scientists for nearly 125 years. The mystery evolved as scientists discovered that cells have multiple copies of histone genes and make far more histones than what is needed for wrapping DNA, yet were unable to explain the apparent contradiction.

“On the one hand, you cannot find the excess histones,” Gunjan said. “On the other hand, if you propose it gets degraded, then you try to measure its rate of degradation and you find that it hangs around for several months to more than a year.”

Gunjan spent five years seeking answers to the mystery before his discovery of two separate pools of histones.

“Not only did we show for the first time that histones are unstable -- they get rapidly degraded -- we also showed this has important consequences for DNA damage and repair processes that have a major impact on cancer formation,” Gunjan said.

Additionally, previous studies published by other researchers suggest that the newly discovered regulated histone proteolysis may make significant contributions to many diverse biological processes, from the resetting of epigenetic marks on histones that help regulate gene expression, to sperm formation.

“All of this together suggests this is a very important phenomenon,” Gunjan said.

CONTACT: Doug Carlson
(850) 645-1255
doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu

Nov. 2, 2009

Dance Marathon at Florida State University and Children’s Miracle Network at Shands Children’s Hospital at the University of Florida has presented a check for $182,456.42 to the FSU College of Medicine for the benefit of children throughout Gadsden and Leon counties.

The proceeds are part of the $384,000 raised in 2009 by Dance Marathon, the largest student-run philanthropy on the FSU campus. Children’s Miracle Network at Shands Children’s Hospital at UF distributes part of the money raised to the FSU College of Medicine for use in pediatric outreach programs.

The College of Medicine is using part of the proceeds to pay for a school-based health program in Gadsden County designed to address health care disparities among area children. Other projects funded by the Dance Marathon earnings include equipment for the pediatrics unit at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, as well as College of Medicine research projects aimed at curbing childhood obesity and its resulting Type 2 diabetes.

Participating in the signing ceremony were Dr. John P. Fogarty, dean of the FSU College of Medicine; Dr. Rick Bucciarelli, associate vice president for health affairs for government relations, professor and associate chairman of the department of pediatrics at the University of Florida; members of the FSU Dance Marathon overall committee; and FSU medical students who are part of the Pediatrics Interest Group.