May 19, 2005
Major lectures coming up
Bodemer Lecture
Implanted medical devices pose some particular problems in clinical research, in part because there can be dangers involved in the surgery to put them in the body and because it can be difficult or impossible to remove them once they are in place.
A wide array of medical devices, from artificial hip joints to stents that keep heart arteries open, are now in use and many more are in the development and testing pipeline.
Dr. E. Haavi Morreim, professor of bioethics at the University of Tennessee’s College of Medicine, will speak on “Ethical Issues in Research with Surgically Implanted Devices: Devices Ain’t Drugs!” when she gives the Bodemer Lecture for the Department of Medical History and Ethics. Her lecture is from 3:30 to 5 p.m., Thursday, May 26, in Hogness Auditorium at the Health Sciences Center. Everyone is welcome.
Morreim has been a clinical teacher and medical ethics consultant for more than 20 years. She is on the editorial baords for several journals, including the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, and she chairs the Independent Patient Advocacy Council for patients enrolled in the AbioCor artificial heart trial. She is the author of two books: Balancing Act: The New Medical Ethics of Medicine’s New Economics, and Holding Health Care Accountable: Law and the New Medical Marketplace.
The lecture is named for Dr. Charles Bodemer, founder and chair of the School of Medicine’s Department of Biomedical History from 1967 until his sudden death in 1985. The department was later renamed as the Department of Medical History and Ethics.
Futterman Memorial Lecture
Dr. Douglas Vollrath, a leading researcher on genetics and blindness, will present the 20th annual Futterman Memorial Lecture for the Department of Ophthalmology next week.
He will speak on “Disease Mechanisms in Neurodegenerative Blindness” at 10 a.m., Thursday, May 26, in Turner Auditorium, room D-209 of the Health Sciences Center.
Vollrath, associate professor of genetics and ophthalmology at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., has been investigating two different examples of how genetic mutations cause the death of cells important for vision. In glaucoma, he has found that some inherited forms of the disease are caused by mutations in the myocilin gene that result in mis-folded proteins, which then clog the outflow of aqueous humor, raising the pressure within the eye and eventually leading to blindness.
In his investigations of retinitis pigmentosa, a group of inherited conditions that lead to photoreceptor cell degeneration, he found a very different mechanism. Recently, his group found that mutations in a gene that controls the regular reprocessing of fragments shed from the tips of rod cells allow this debris to build up, eventually shutting down the normal turnover of these cells.
The annual lecture is named for Dr. Sidney Futterman, a member of the UW Department of Ophthalmology faculty from 1966 until his death in 1979. His research on the metabolism of vitamin A in the retina is widely recognized and he received the Friedenwald Award of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology the year before his death.
Gunn-Loke Lecture
Dr. Patrick Mantyh, director of the Neurosystems Center at the University of Minnesota, will speak on “Skeletal Pain in Health and Disease” for the 20th annual Gunn-Loke Lecture at 5 p.m., Tuesday, June 7, in room T-747 of the Health Sciences Center. The lecture is open to everyone. Mantyh is a professor of preventive sciences, neuroscience and psychiatry at the University of Minnesota and also directs the Nolecular Neuroviology Lab at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. He earned his Ph.D. in anatomy and neuroscience from the University of California, San Francisco, in 1981 and was a fellow in neurochemical pharmacology in Cambridge, England. He also holds a law degree with a specialty in patent law. The focus of his laboratory is understanding the basic mechanisms that generate and maintain chronic pain and translating these findings into new treatments.
The Gunn-Loke Lecture is sponsored by the UW Multidisciplinary Pain Center and School of Medicine; it is supported by an endowment established by Dr. and Mrs. C. Chan Gunn of Vancouver, B.C.
