UW News

January 11, 2007

Health Sciences News Briefs


Many faculty and staff were instrumental in making UW Health Sciences a site of excellence in the second half of 2006. Listed below are some of those honors.


n Janis Abkowitz, head of the Division of Hematology, was appointed to the Clement A. Finch Endowed Professorship in Hematology. Abkowitz is professor of medicine, adjunct professor of genome sciences, and director of the Seattle Care Alliance Hematology Clinic.


n Charles “Chip” Asbury, assistant professor of physiology and biophysics, received a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering. He is one of 20 recipients for 2006, each of whom will receive $625,000 in funding over five years. The Packard Fellowship is aimed at giving promising new researchers a chance to pursue science and engineering research with few funding restrictions and limited paperwork.


n Alfred Berg, chair of the UW Department of Family Medicine, was named chair of the Institute of Medicine Committee on the Treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He is a national leader in family practice medicine and preventive care.


n Susan Blackburn, professor and director of the Neonatal Nursing Graduate Programs for the UW Department of Family and Child Nursing, received the 2006 Distinguished Nurse of the Year award from the March of Dimes Washington Chapter. Blackburn is a founder of the UW’s clinical nursing master’s programs.


n William Bremner, chair of the Department of Medicine, and Stephan Fihn, head of the General Internal Medicine Division, were appointed by Secretary of Veterans Affairs R. James Nicholson to the Department of Veterans Affairs Blue Ribbon Panel on VA-Medical School Affiliations.


n Teri Brentnall, UW associate professor of medicine, led an international team of researchers that discovered that the mutated form of a gene called Palladin causes familial pancreatic cancer. The findings, published online Dec. 12 in the journal PLoS-Medicine, may help explain why the disease is so deadly.


n Ru Chen, acting instructor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, received a Career Development Award in Pancreatic Cancer Research from the American Association for Cancer Research and the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. The award will provide a two-year grant of $50,000 per year for research expenses.


n Paul Craig, associate clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, was appointed to the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services. The committee advises the government on how current and proposed federal policies and regulations will affect the financial stability of rural hospitals and health care services. Other UW-associated nurses honored were Julia Hulsey, Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center; Frances O’Donnell, Harborview Medical Center; Dr. Mary Salazar, UW Department of Community Health; Heidi Nakumura, UW Medical Center; and LT Arnold, UW Medical Center.


n Margaret Heitkemper, professor and chair of biobehavioral nursing and health systems in the School of Nursing, and adjunct professor of medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, was appointed to the National Commission on Digestive Diseases. The commission provides scientific oversight of NIH-funded research and development to address goals for research in digestive diseases, with recommendations to NIH and to Congress.


n King Holmes, chair of the Department of Global Health, received the George Brown Award for International Scientific Cooperation by the Civilian Research and Development Foundation in Arlington, Va. The award is the highest honor given by the CRDF.


n Gail Pairitz Jarvik, professor of medicine in the Division of Medical Genetics, was named chairperson of the Genomics, Computational Biology and Technology Study Section in the Center for Scientific Review at the National Institutes of Health. The study section reviews grant applications in its subject area to aid in the process of determining research funding priorities.


n Masahiro Narita, associate professor of medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, was appointed to the federal Advisory Council for the Elimination of Tuberculosis by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Narita is a physician at Harborview and TB Disease Control Officer of Public Health–Seattle & King County.


n Richard Page, head of the Division of Cardiology, was elected second vice president of the Heart Rhythm Society and will become president in 2009. The society has a membership of approximately 3,500 physicians and associated professionals around the world who are involved in cardiac pacing and cardiac electrophysiology.


n Sara Paul was appointed the first program manager for the UW Department of Pediatric Dentistry’s Early Childhood Oral Health program. Paul has an extensive career in leadership healthcare and was most recently the administrator of the Cancer Center at the Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Neb.


n Buddy Ratner, director of UW Engineered Biomaterials, Department of Bioengineering, and Chuck Murry, professor of pathology and co-director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at the UW, led a bioengineering partnership that received a $10.2 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. The grant will support projects devoted to heart muscle regeneration through tissue engineering and embryonic stem cell research. The partnership also includes researchers from the Hope Heart Program at the Benaroya Research Institute.


n Morayma Reyes, assistant professor of pathology, received the medical school’s Marian E. Smith Junior Faculty Research Award. The award gives $25,000 in funding for research and professional activities, and honors one outstanding junior faculty member each year.