FSU researchers win GAP awards to propel work from lab to market

Kathleen Haughney
01/06/2016 1:01 pm

Six Florida State University researchers are getting some extra cash from the university to help transform promising research into viable products for the global marketplace.

Researchers Pradeep Bhide, Biwu Ma, Geoffrey Strouse, Mykhailo Shatruk, Wei Yang and Jianping Zheng will receive a combined amount of $155,000 from FSU’s GAP program to work on projects such as a new drug to treat cognitive inflexibility, organic light emitting diodes and a hybrid battery and capacitor.

“We have some outstanding faculty at Florida State,” said FSU Vice President for Research Gary K. Ostrander. “This program gives them the financial support to help move their ideas to the next level and explore business opportunities that could arise from their research endeavors.”

The GAP program provides university researchers with funding to help prepare their work for commercialization and potentially find outside investors. Over the past 10 years, it has doled out nearly $2.2 million to help researchers develop products such as new cancer treatments, food contamination test kits and next-generation wound dressings.

Ten researchers presented their ideas last month to a volunteer panel of local business men and women, in addition to Ostrander and Office of Commercialization Director Brent Edington. After a deliberation and budgeting process, the panel agreed to fund five projects.

“This is a direct help to researchers,” Edington said. “This will allow them to get their technologies ready for commercialization.”

The winning projects are:

• A new treatment for cognitive inflexibility: Bhide, director of the Center for Brain Repair at the FSU College of Medicine, is developing a new, non-stimulant drug to treat cognitive inflexibility. Cognitive inflexibility hampers a child’s ability to learn by making it difficult to switch between thinking about one concept to another or multiple concepts simultaneously. Aspects of cognitive inflexibility are found in autism, obsessive compulsive disorder, schizophrenia and attention deficit hyperactive disorder. It affects roughly 25 million people, but no drug has been developed specifically to treat this condition.
• Organic light emitting diodes (LEDs): Ma, associate professor of chemical engineering, is working with a class of materials called perovskites to build organic LEDs. Perovskites are any materials that have the same type of crystal structure as calcium titanium oxide. Perovskites have shown tremendous potential in creating LEDs that are both more cost efficient and brighter than traditional LEDs.
• Nanostructured permanent magnets: Strouse, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Shatruk, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, have developed a new process to make permanent magnets that are cheaper and less dependent on rare-earth metals.
• Computational drug discovery: Yang, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, is developing a computer-aided drug design system using novel approaches, which will substantially decrease the time and cost associated with drug development. The computer-aided drug design system is based on an algorithm that predicts the efficacy of potential drug molecules.
• Hybrid li-oin battery and li-ion capacitor: Jianping Zheng, professor of electrical and computer engineering, is an expert in supercapacitor technology and has been working on creating a hybrid lithium battery and capacitor that would provide both the energy and the power sources.

CONTACT: Julie Jordan, FSU College of Medicine
(850) 645-9699; julie.jordan@med.fsu.edu

March 2016

FSU GERIATRICS RESEARCHER RECRUITING CAREGIVERS FOR DEMENTIA STUDY

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Antonio Terracciano, a researcher with the Florida State University College of Medicine, is recruiting participants for one of two grants related to dementia.

Terracciano is seeking dementia caregivers from the Tallahassee community to measure the effectiveness of an educational program designed to improve their quality of life. With his other grant, Terracciano will test whether personality change can help predict the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.

With a $250,000 grant from the Florida Department of Health, Terracciano will conduct a clinical trial for dementia caregivers. Using Tallahassee volunteers, he will test the effectiveness of the Powerful Tools for Caregivers educational program.

“Powerful Tools for Caregivers is designed to help caregivers to better manage the stress of caregiving,” said Terracciano, an associate professor in the Department of Geriatrics.

The six-week program was developed by Legacy Health System in Portland, Oregon. It provides caregivers with tools and strategies to improve self-care behaviors such as managing emotions, communication and improved use of community resources.

“We provide this training to people in the community through the Alzheimer’s Project and the Westminster Oaks community,” said Terracciano, “but we wanted to do this clinical trial to learn more about the program’s effectiveness.”

Although its effectiveness has been measured before in pre- and post-tests given to caregivers, Terracciano wants to take the research one step further with a randomized clinical trial.

“Research shows that the program is effective in creating more self-confident caregivers who take better care of themselves,” he said. “If this is true, can it also help with the behavioral symptoms in the person with dementia? That’s one of the ideas that we’ll test.”

The clinical trial is not without challenges: “Finding caregivers to participate will be difficult, because Tallahassee is not a huge city, and the funding only lasts through June. But my hope is that through this training we will see improvements not only in the caregiver but in the person with dementia.”

With his other grant, totaling $148,000 from the National Institute on Aging, Terracciano will examine data from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. In that study, almost 2,000 participants had regular cognitive and personality evaluations beginning in 1958. As participants aged, 10 percent developed clinical dementia. Terracciano will explore this data sample to determine personality change in the preclinical phase of Alzheimer’s disease.

Common personality changes associated with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia are increased sadness, increased irritability and decreased conscientiousness.

“These changes are part of the clinical diagnosis,” Terracciano said. “To date, it is unknown when these changes occur. I am looking at whether change in personality occurs before people show cognitive impairment.”

He is confident the sample will help provide clues.

“The measure used for personality is the gold standard in the field,” said Terracciano. “There were people who filled out this questionnaire every couple of years for 20 years before they developed dementia.”

He cited the benefits of using self-reported personality measures from the Baltimore study: “We want to say great things about our loved one and how it’s the dementia that causes these changes, but there is potential bias when that happens. It’s best to see how people describe themselves.”

There are also implications for diagnosis.

“If you see a little bit of deterioration in memory, and you also see deterioration in personality, that will strengthen the confidence of the diagnosis,” said Terracciano. “Whether personality changes can be used as a diagnostic tool is one of the ultimate goals of this research.”

Caregivers of those with dementia wishing to participate in Terracciano’s Powerful Tools for Caregivers study may contact his assistant, Lametra Smallwood, at lametra.smallwood@med.fsu.edu or (850) 645-2993.

###

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

March 3, 2016

FSUCares SPENDING SPRING BREAK ON MEDICAL OUTREACH TRIPS

For some Florida State medical and nursing students, a spring-break trip to South Florida won’t involve a visit to the beach or a bar. This year, like every year since the Florida State College of Medicine welcomed its first class in 2001, these students will be giving out medical supplies and treatment – and getting a cultural education in return.

On Friday (March 4) they will be available for interviews and photos as they pack medical supplies donated by the Tallahassee community. First- and second-year College of Medicine students and FSU nursing students will make the annual trip, along with faculty members. Their destination is Immokalee in Southwest Florida.

The team will arrive in Immokalee Friday afternoon and return to Tallahassee Wednesday. Spring break for Florida State is March 7-11.

FSU medical and nursing students will be available for interviews and photos on:

FRIDAY, MARCH 4

9 A.M.

FSU COLLEGE OF MEDICINE

1115 W. CALL ST., TALLAHASSEE

Directions: From downtown, travel west on Tennessee Street and turn left on Stadium Drive. The College of Medicine is at Stadium and Call Street. Press parking will be available in a parking lot located off Call between the College of Medicine and the Psychology Building. Additional parking is available in the parking garage at Stadium Drive and Spirit Way.

For more about FSUCares, visit: /fsucares

# # #

CONTACT: Javier Rosado, Ph.D., director of clinical training, Florida State University College of Medicine – (239) 823-8508; Javier.rosado@med.fsu.edu

March 4, 2016

FSUCares SPENDING SPRING BREAK IN IMMOKALEE

A number of Florida State medical and nursing students are looking for more than fun in the sun during spring break. This year, like every year since the Florida State College of Medicine welcomed its first class in 2001, these students will be providing medical screenings as well as patient education – and getting a cultural education in return. It’s a chance to learn, as well as give, as part of the College of Medicine’s effort to produce compassionate physicians.

Five medical students, four nursing students, and two College of Medicine faculty members will be joined this year by five nurse practitioners from Sarasota. The contingent will be doing health screenings and medical outreach while assisting migrant farm workers in Immokalee.

“FSUCares is a medical, student-run organization designed to help the underserved and underprivileged populations both locally and abroad,” said Karen Myers, FSU College of Medicine faculty adviser to FSUCares. “The trip to Immokalee is a service learning trip in which first- and second-year medical students spend part of their spring break providing medical outreach to migrant farm workers who do not have access to health care.”

Students and faculty will be available for interviews and photos in Immokalee:

SUNDAY, MARCH 6, 8:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.
Our Lady of Guadalupe Church

MONDAY, MARCH 7, 5-7 p.m.
Immokalee Community School

Contact Javier Rosado to make other arrangements for interview opportunities, March 5-9

For more about FSUCares, visit: med.fsu.edu/fsucares

For more about the College of Medicine’s Immokalee Health Education Site, visit: med.fsu.edu/Immokalee

###

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

March 16, 2016

FLORIDA STATE MEDICAL STUDENTS TO MEET THEIR MATCH

On Friday, the 119 members of the Florida State University College of Medicine Class of 2016 expect to find out where they will receive residency training — a defining moment in their medical careers — during a Match Day ceremony.

The students will simultaneously open envelopes, learning for the first time where they will spend the next three to seven years completing training in the medical specialty they will practice.

Graduating students at M.D.-granting medical schools across the United States receive their match information at the same time through the National Resident Matching Program, the primary system that matches applicants to residency programs with available positions at U.S. teaching hospitals.

The ceremony will take place:

FRIDAY, MARCH 18

NOON

RUBY DIAMOND CONCERT HALL

WESTCOTT BUILDING, 222 S. COPELAND ST.

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA

The ceremony can also be viewed online. Visit /matchday for parking and map information, as well as details about the webcast.

###

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

By Doug Carlson
March 18, 2016

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
ANNOUNCES MATCH DAY RESULTS

U.S. News Names College Second-Most Competitive Medical School in Nation for Admissions

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Graduating students in the Florida State University College of Medicine Class of 2016 received notification today of where they will enter residency training this summer.

Sixty-eight of the 116 graduating students (59 percent) who matched with a residency program did so in a primary care specialty, including internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics and obstetrics/gynecology.

Also on Friday, U.S. News and World Report published news from its recent graduate-program survey revealing the FSU College of Medicine as the second-most competitive medical school in the country for admissions. The College of Medicine extended 151 offers among the more than 6,200 applicants for the class admitted in May 2015. The admissions rate of 2.4 percent trailed only Mayo Medical School (Rochester, Minnesota).

“We clearly have become a medical school of choice not only because our students consistently match with outstanding residency programs, but because word has gotten out about the tremendous experiences our students have during their four years of medical education in our unique, community-based approach,” College of Medicine Dean John P. Fogarty said.

“While we may be extremely competitive in the selection process, our priority is finding students who believe in our mission and will help us continue to produce the doctors Florida needs most. As you can see from our match results today, our students are choosing to serve in areas of greatest need. They clearly understand the call to serve their fellow man.”

Other students matched Friday in general surgery, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, orthopedic surgery, neurology, ophthalmology, psychiatry, diagnostic radiology, radiation oncology, dermatology, neurological surgery, otolaryngology, pathology and urology.

Nine students matched in Tallahassee, including three with the new general surgery residency program sponsored by the College of Medicine at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. Four others matched in family medicine at TMH.

Fifty-one students matched in Florida, a state that ranks 42nd nationally in the number of available residency slots. To help address the issue, the College of Medicine has been partnering with institutions around the state to sponsor more residency programs. Eight students matched with programs sponsored by the College of Medicine.

The residency match, conducted annually by the National Resident Matching Program, is the primary system that matches applicants to residency programs with available positions at U.S. teaching hospitals. Graduating medical students across the country receive their match information at the same time on the same day.

###

For information about Florida State’s Match Day history, visit /alumnifriends/residency-match-day-results.

To see where past College of Medicine graduates are practicing, visit http://public.med.fsu.edu/alumni/alumni.aspx?class=2005.

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

April 4, 2016

FLORIDA STATE AND TMH TO HOST BRAIN RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM

On Friday, distinguished researchers focusing on how the brain develops and how developmental disabilities affecting the brain and the mind arise will gather at a Tallahassee symposium to discuss their findings.

Keynote speaker Jill Escher, known as an “autism research philanthropist,” focuses on epigenetics and germline errors in the etiology of autism. She is president of the Autism Society of the San Francisco Bay Area, a housing provider to adults with developmental disabilities.

Also speaking will be Amy Wetherby, director of the Autism Institute at the Florida State University College of Medicine, and Pradeep Bhide, director of the Center for Brain Repair at Florida State.

The public is invited. A light lunch will be provided for those who RSVP at http://med.fsu.edu/developingmind by noon Thursday.

The FSU-TMH Symposium on the Developing Mind will take place:

FRIDAY, APRIL 8

11:30 A.M.-2:30 P.M.

TURNBULL CENTER

555 W. PENSACOLA ST.

TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA

FSU Media Contact
Doug Carlson: (850) 645-1255 or (850) 694-3735
Doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu

SMH Media Contact
Kim Savage: (941) 893-7649
kim-savage@smh.com

FSU, SMH Internal Medicine Residency Program
Receives Initial Accreditation Approval

SARASOTA, Fla. (April 12, 2016) – The Florida State University College of Medicine and Sarasota Memorial Health Care System received the good news today that their Internal Medicine Residency Program was approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).

The initial accreditation clears the way for SMH and FSU to begin reaching out to graduating medical students interested in enrolling in the program in the summer of 2017.

“The news couldn’t have been more timely … we just spent two days meeting with a really top-notch group of medical students presenting their research and case reports at the Florida ACP conference in Orlando,” said Wilhelmine Wiese-Rometsch, MD, director of the FSU College of Medicine Internal Medicine Residency Program at Sarasota Memorial. “Many of the students are getting ready to graduate this year and were very interested in Sarasota’s program. As news of our accreditation gets out, the level of interest is already intensifying.”

The ACGME approved the program’s initial accreditation following the April 8-10 meeting of the internal medicine review committee. Once the Sarasota program has been operational two years, ACGME surveyors will conduct a second site visit to validate it is meeting the standards of ACGME, the sanctioning body of graduate medical education in the U.S. and Canada.

The Sarasota program is the first residency program approved by ACGME between St. Petersburg and Fort Myers along Florida’s west coast. When it reaches full capacity in year three, the Sarasota program will enroll 39 residents and by 2020 begin producing 13 new internal medicine physicians each year.

Developed to help combat a growing shortage of primary care physicians, the residency program is an important move for the region, said John P. Fogarty, M.D., dean of the College of Medicine. The Sarasota area grew by 25,000 people between 2010 and 2015 and is home to more than 125,000 residents age 65 and older, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“This new internal medicine residency program is a significant part of the commitment to producing future physicians for Sarasota and this entire region,” Dr. Fogarty said. “Numerous studies have shown that most physicians end up practicing near where they completed residency or fellowship training.”

During their three years of training, residents rotate through all of the disciplines in internal medicine under the supervision of FSU and Sarasota Memorial’s highly qualified, board certified physicians and medical educators.

Residents and teaching hospitals also provide a significant source of care for underserved populations, including 40 percent of all charity care in the United States, according to the American Medical Association. Nationwide, resident physicians also provide services for the most critically ill patients, including those suffering from HIV/AIDS, burn victims, and veterans.

As part of Sarasota’s residency program, Sarasota Memorial plans to open an adult Internal Medicine practice in Newtown that will serve as a base for resident physicians’ outpatient training. The facility will allow the residents to gain experience in chronic disease management and preventive health, while providing continuity of care to a vulnerable and underserved population. People visiting the clinic would be cared for by resident physicians and Sarasota Memorial faculty physicians co-managing and supervising each patient’s care for the duration of each resident’s three-year training program. The team will care for the uninsured and underinsured, including Medicaid and Medicare patients, at low to no cost depending on an individual’s ability to pay.

Upon completing their residency, the physicians can apply for board certification and become licensed to practice independently as Internal Medicine specialists or continue their training in additional subspecialties.

FSU College of Medicine Internal Residency Program at Sarasota Memorial
The Internal Medicine program in Sarasota will be the fifth residency program sponsored by the FSU College of Medicine. In the past five years, the College of Medicine has sponsored new programs in Tallahassee (internal medicine, general surgery and dermatology) and Fort Myers (family medicine). Florida State also sponsors a fellowship for advanced training in procedural dermatology in Tallahassee.

About Sarasota Memorial
Sarasota Memorial Health Care System is a regional referral center offering Southwest Florida’s greatest breadth and depth of care, with more than 900,000 patient visits a year. Sarasota Memorial’s flagship 819-bed acute care hospital has been recognized repeatedly as one of the nation’s largest, and best, with superior patient outcomes and a complete continuum of outpatient services– from urgent care clinics and physician groups, laboratory and diagnostic imaging centers, to home health and skilled nursing & rehabilitation. Sarasota Memorial is the only hospital repeatedly ranked #1 in the Bradenton-Sarasota-Venice-North Port region (U.S. News’ “Best Hospitals”) and among the top 100 hospitals in the nation (Truven Health Analytics).

###

CONTACT: Julie Jordan, FSU College of Medicine
(850) 645-9699; julie.jordan@med.fsu.edu

May 11, 2016

FSU RESEARCHER TARGETS ON-OFF SWITCH OF CARDIAC CONTRACTION

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Calcium is most associated with bones, but it’s also a key player in the heart.

When calcium binds to a certain protein in heart cells, it triggers muscle contraction. Too much calcium causes stronger heartbeats; too little calcium leads to weaker beats.

Jose Pinto, a researcher in the Florida State University College of Medicine, will spend the next five years studying how the heart’s calcium is regulated and how to correct a calcium imbalance using an inside approach in the cardiac cell. The National Institutes of Health has awarded him a $1.8 million grant, which will allow him to continue the work he began last year with funds from an American Heart Association award.

“The concept and the aims are similar, but we are now going much deeper into the molecular mechanisms,” said Pinto, an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences.

The long-term goal is to identify components inside the cardiac cell that are involved with the development of cardiomyopathies — diseases that can lead to heart failure — and open the door for more effective treatment strategies inside the cell.

Troponin C is a gene that Pinto calls “the calcium sensor of the heart,” the on-off switch controlling contractions in the heart. His team is working to demonstrate that mutations in that gene cause the heart to pump blood in one of two harmful ways. One results in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, where the heart becomes abnormally thick and initially pumps more forcefully. The other is dilated cardiomyopathy, where the pumping chamber stretches and the walls become thinner — and thus pumps more weakly.

“In the hypertrophic heart, it can be compared to a dimmer switch; you turn it only a little bit and the lights come on — it’s hypersensitive to calcium,” Pinto said. “In the dilated cardiomyopathy, it’s like you switch, switch, switch, switch, and the lights never come on.”

Once he successfully demonstrates Troponin C’s role, he aims to focus on a possible treatment of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy using an enzyme found inside heart cells.

“The beautiful thing about the enzyme we are targeting is that it has been shown to be only present in the heart,” Pinto said. “The main problem with most drugs developed to target enzymes is that they affect other cells, healthy cells, and the patient experiences unwanted side effects.”

Pinto believes that targeting hypertrophic cardiomyopathy from within the heart cells may help prevent those unwanted side effects.

“If your heart is working above the normal range all the time, that is going to lead to problems,” Pinto said. “The unique thing about our project is that we’re going to be studying what the deletion of this enzyme will do in the heart after the disease has already started. We are looking at the reversal of the disease: Can we do something to bring the heart back to normal?”

###

CONTACT: Doug Carlson, FSU College of Medicine
(850) 645-1255; doug.carlson@med.fsu.edu

May 20, 2016

FSU COLLEGE OF MEDICINE TO GRADUATE 119 NEW PHYSICIANS AND 12 MASTER’S STUDENTS

The Florida State University College of Medicine will graduate its 12th class of medical students at a commencement ceremony Saturday. Ricardo Gonzalez-Rothi, M.D., chair of the Department of Clinical Sciences, will deliver the commencement address.

In addition, the college will graduate its seventh class of students with the Master of Science Degree in Biomedical Sciences – Bridge to Clinical Medicine. By completing the program, the 12 students will begin medical school at Florida State May 31 as members of the incoming Class of 2020.

The highly successful outreach program has been credited with increasing the number of qualified candidates for medical school from backgrounds that are underrepresented in medicine, including minority students and students from rural communities. The success of its outreach programs has helped the College of Medicine achieve a ranking above the 90th percentile nationally each of the last six years in percentage of black or African-American graduates.

The commencement ceremony will be held:

SATURDAY, MAY 21

10 A.M.

RUBY DIAMOND CONCERT HALL

WESTCOTT BUILDING

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

TALLAHASSEE, FLA.

###