Steven Idell, MD, PhD, the interim vice president for research at The University of Texas Health Center at Tyler, has been named vice president for research, said Dr. Kirk A. Calhoun, UTHCT president.

Dr. Idell was named interim director of research in December, a promotion from his position as director for clinical research, a post he had held since 1997. He also was chairman of the Department of Specialty Care Services from 1996 until December. Dr. Idell, who joined the Health Center in 1984, was selected as chief of UTHCT's Pulmonary Division in 1988.

He currently is studying lung disease and lung injury with funding from four active NIH grants totaling more than $3.1 million. In 1986, Dr. Idell received a clinical investigator award from the NIH that provided $321,520 in funding over five years. He is the author or co-author of more than 100 articles published in scientific journals and has been a scientific investigator in more than 30 clinical trials.

In 1996, Dr. Idell was appointed to the Temple Chair in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, the first endowed chair at the Health Center approved by The University of Texas Board of Regents. He is board certified in internal medicine, pulmonary medicine, and critical care medicine.

Dr. Idell also served as president of the Texas Thoracic Society from 2000-2002. He is a fellow in the American College of Chest Physicians and the American College of Physicians. Dr. Idell is associate editor of Clinical Respiratory Medicine and has served as associate editor of the American Journal of Physiology: Lung Cell and Molecular Physiology and The American Journal of Respiratory Cellular and Molecular Biology.

A native of Philadelphia, Dr. Idell received his medical degree and a PhD in physiology from the Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia. He completed his residency and internship in internal medicine at Temple Hospital. In addition, he served a fellowship in pulmonary medicine at Temple Hospital.

His appointment as UTHCT's vice president for research was effective March 1.

Texas Christian University (TCU)'s Institute of Behavioral Research (IBR) has received a five-year, $3.25 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to further develop an assessment system that can be used by drug abuse treatment providers to measure the impact of organizational attributes and program resources on clients and program operations.

The Organizational and Resource Assessments (ORA) project will build upon earlier research conducted by IBR. It will provide valuable feedback to clinic management in a variety of organizational areas, including how well human and technological resources are used. The system also will identify various program needs such as funding, and indicate, from a client's perspective, how well treatment is being delivered. The ORA will be tested in the Southeast and Gulf Coast regions.

Another aspect of the research will involve developing and implementing a training program for clinic managers to educate them on how to incorporate results of ORA assessments into clinic operations. IBR also will use the research to study the process by which clinics change over time and how clinic management adopts and utilizes the ORA system.

The University of Texas at Tyler College of Nursing and Health Sciences has been awarded a Sid W. Richardson Foundation grant for $175,000 to expand the online educational outreach program.

The grant will allow the College of Nursing and Health Sciences to expand its use of Internet resources to enhance educational programs at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The goal will be to increase educational outreach efforts, especially to students in rural and medically underserved areas, and enhance the quality of instruction by adding greater interactivity and other features to help students achieve success.

Some courses are taught completely online, but in most courses the Internet resources will supplement traditional classroom instruction, instruction by interactive television, clinical experiences, group conferences and nursing simulation laboratory experiences, said Dr. Carol Kilmon, associate professor of nursing.

The college's Blackboard system, an online component of undergraduate and graduate courses that provides access to course handouts and supplementary information, will be expanded to provide: practice examinations for self-assessment of content knowledge; streaming video to improve skill development in nursing procedures; online tutorials for selected areas of content; photographic databases to enhance student knowledge of clinical conditions; increased opportunities for student-student and student-faculty interaction; institutional resources to assist faculty in utilizing the Internet as a learning resource; and opportunities for graduate students to design and help implement online teaching strategies.

The Richardson Foundation provides grants to nonprofit organizations in Texas to help them fulfill their missions. Grants are made primarily in education, healthcare, human services and the arts.

The University of North Texas System indicated today that it still intends to propose creation of a public law school in the North Texas region, and this plan has not changed because of Texas Wesleyan University's decision to keep the TWU law school.

The decision terminated all discussions regarding UNT's possible acquisition of the TWU law school.

The North Texas region is the single largest concentration of population in Texas with some 5.6 million citizens and a projected population of 12.5 million by 2030, yet the closest public law schools are in Lubbock, Austin and Houston.

UNT began developing long-term plans for a public law school in the early 1980s by building law-related library acquisitions. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board recently completed a study of the availability of legal education in the state, concluding that the Dallas-Fort Worth and the Rio Grande Valley regions are underserved.

UNT System Chancellor Lee Jackson indicated that the UNT System intends to ask the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and State Legislature in 2005 to authorize the creation of the North Texas region's first public law school. Meanwhile, the UNT System will be working closely with law firms and businesses to plan the new law school curriculum and determine its most suitable location.

Panos Papamichalis, a Texas Instruments researcher who is one of the country's leading experts in the field of signal processing, has been named chair of the Electrical Engineering Department in SMU's School of Engineering. He will assume the position Aug. 1.

A native of Greece, Papamichalis received his undergraduate degree in mechanical and electrical engineering from the National Technical University of Athens. He received his master's degree and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Papamichalis joined Texas Instruments in 1980 as a member of its technical staff. His early work focused on techniques that simplified the algorithms that allow digital technologies to recreate speech.

In 1990, he became an R&D branch manager, leading a team of researchers working on digital signal processing (DSP) projects. DSP is the technology that powers electronic devices ranging from toys to cell phones. He was named a TI Fellow in 1995.

From 1997-2000, Papamichalis served as director of the Tsukuba R&D Center in Tsukuba, Japan, TI's only research center outside the United States. Since 2000 he has served as director of the Imaging and Audio Laboratory at TI's DSP Research and Development Center in Dallas. This laboratory was created in 2000 to generate technology for imaging, video and audio applications.

Papamichalis holds four patents related to speech processing and has written several books on speech coding and digital signal processing. He has taught courses on speech processing at Rice University, SMU and the University of Texas at Dallas.

In 1999, Papamichalis was named a fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the highest honor an electrical engineer can receive from his peers. He served as president of the IEEE Signal Processing Society in 2000-2001, the highest leadership role in the field of signal processing.

Papamichalis replaces Jerry Gibson, who served as chair of the Electrical Engineering Department from 1997 to 2002. SMU's Department of Electrical Engineering focuses on research in the areas of communications/signal processing and micro/optoelectronics.

SMU Engineering Professor Bijan Mohraz has been named chair of the Department of Environmental and Civil Engineering. The department established in 2001, offers undergraduate and graduate programs in civil engineering, environmental engineering, and environmental science. In addition, the department offers a master of science degree in facilities management.

Environmental and civil engineers are responsible for disposal of hazardous and radioactive waste; air quality and pollution control; design of water supply and waste water treatment systems; transportation systems; power plants; high-rise buildings; and even aerospace structures and space stations.

Mohraz has filled a variety of positions since coming to SMU's engineering school in 1974. He currently is a professor of mechanical engineering and the associate dean for academic affairs. Previously he served as chair of the former Civil and Mechanical Engineering Department and as associate dean and director of the Graduate Division of the school. Students have recognized him three times as an Outstanding Professor at SMU.

An expert on structural and earthquake engineering, Mohraz has received research grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and has served as a consultant to public and private sectors. He has published more than 80 technical articles including two chapters for handbooks on seismic design. He is the editor of the Journal of Architectural Engineering. Mohraz is a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the president elect of the Board of Governors of the Architectural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Mohraz received his Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Illinois and served on the faculty prior to joining SMU. From 1994 - 1998, he was on leave as a visiting scholar at the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology working to improve seismic design guidelines and specifications. He is a registered professional engineer in the State of Texas.

Representatives of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Nursing has announced Donna Owen, R.N., Ph.D., professor in the School of Nursing as the Mildred and Shirley L. Garrison Professor of Geriatric Nursing. This is the first endowed professorship in the School of Nursing.

The professorship offers the opportunity to develop and implement progressive interdisciplinary research and educational programs in gerontological nursing at the undergraduate and graduate level within the Health Sciences Center. The Health Sciences Center has made a broad institutional commitment to the study of aging in the Southwest, launching a series of initiatives in research, education and outreach to expand knowledge, improve training and increase clinical services for senior adults in the West Texas region.

The Garrisons have a distinguished history of supporting initiatives involving aging and long-term care, including the establishment of the Mildred and Shirley L. Garrison Geriatric Education and Care Center, a 120-bed, five-wing teaching nursing home on the Health Sciences Center campus. The Garrison Center is a collaboration between the Health Sciences Center and Sears Methodist Retirement System Inc.

Gilbert A. Castro, Ph.D., interim executive vice president for research and academic affairs and professor of integrative biology and pharmacology at The University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, has been named to the External Advisory Council for the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI).

The NSBRI, funded by NASA, is a consortium of institutions studying the health risks related to long-duration space flight. The Institute's External Advisory Council is composed of leaders in research fields central to the Institute's mission and advises management on strategic issues and programmatic effectiveness.

Prior to his current executive appointment, Castro served as UT-Houston's assistant vice president of education access and equity.

Castro earned his bachelor's degree in biology from Lamar University and his master's degree in zoology at the University of Arkansas. He received his doctoral degree in microbiology at The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Castro is a member of the American Physiological Society and past president of the American Society of Parasitologists.

The NSBRI's research and education program involves investigators at more than 70 institutions and government laboratories across the United States. Projects address space health concerns such as bone loss, muscle weakening, cardiovascular changes, sleep disturbances, immunology, infection, balance and orientation problems, radiation exposure, nutrition, neurobehavioral and psychosocial factors, and remote-treatment technologies.

Brian D. Shannon, J.D., associate dean for academic affairs at Texas Tech University's School of Law, recently was appointed by Gov. Rick Perry as a member of the Governor's Committee on People with Disabilities. Shannon, who is also a Charles B. Thornton Professor of Law, is one of 11 individuals selected for the committee. His appointment will expire Feb. 1, 2005.

The purpose of the committee is to provide information on the abilities, rights and needs of people with disabilities, Shannon said. The state committee provides information to and advises the governor and other state officials on matters concerning individuals with disabilities. As a member of the committee, Shannon said he can offer insight into disability rights and related legal issues. Over the years, he has taught courses and published research relating to both mental illness and other disability issues.

Since 1988, Shannon has been a faculty member with the School of Law. Shannon earned his law degree from the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, and he graduated with a bachelor's of science in mathematics from Angelo State University in San Angelo. Along with his academic duties, Shannon serves on the board of the Lubbock Regional Mental Health Mental Retardation Center and is the vice chair of the State Bar's Disability Issues Committee.

Dr. Danielle Lavin-Loucks, an assistant professor of crime and justice studies and sociology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), has been named to the 15-member board of OPEN (Offender Preparation and Education Network), a Dallas-based non-profit organization that develops training materials to assist inmates in transitioning back into the community.

Established in 1979, OPEN focuses on release-oriented issues such as employment, overcoming addiction and reestablishing social networks, as well as providing orientation for offenders just entering the penal system.

In her new role, Lavin-Loucks will be responsible for developing grant proposals and helping to implement OPEN programs at additional correctional facilities across the country.

OPEN provides indirect service, in the form of training programs and publications, to approximately 100,000 correctional facilities at the state, local and federal levels. Currently, OPEN's board of directors consists of attorneys, criminal justice officials, presidents and vice presidents of Dallas-based businesses and various administrative personnel from a variety of corporations in the Dallas metro area.

Lavin-Loucks received her B.A. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Indiana University, Bloomington.

One of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio's own School of Nursing faculty members was recently inducted into the San Antonio Women's Hall of Fame. Dr. Brenda Jackson, associate dean of the undergraduate nursing program, was recognized as one of this year's inductees who are "pioneering the future." She was honored in the health professions category and was one of 13 women recognized.

One of Dr. Jackson's priorities is to provide health information to women and other lay groups who have limited access. She has been active in the American Heart Association on both local and state levels. Dr. Jackson was the first nurse elected to serve as president of the Texas affiliate of the American Heart Association. In her current role as a member of the heart association's local affiliate's Speaker's Bureau, she speaks primarily to women about heart disease.

Dr. Jackson has earned numerous awards and honors including the Mildred MacIntyre Nurse Volunteer of the Year Award and the Walter M. Kirkendall, M.D., Scientist/Educator of the Year Award.

The San Antonio Women's Hall of Fame was established in 1984 to recognize local women who have not only succeeded in their own careers or professions, but who have used their talents and abilities to serve others. More than 250 women have
been inducted. In addition to the annual recognition of women in the community, the organization also awards scholarships to outstanding high school and college students.

Dr. Jackson earned her bachelor's degree in nursing from the Medical College of Virginia School of Nursing, her master's degree in nursing from the UTHSC's Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and her Ph.D. in adult health nursing and education from The University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing.

Dr. Jackson has been associate dean of the undergraduate nursing program at the UTHSC since 2000.

A new generation of drugs restores the immune response blocked by the hepatitis C virus, reducing the virus to nearly undetectable levels in a matter of days, according to researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

Michael Gale is an assistant professor of microbiology at UT Southwestern and one of the authors of the study, which is to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Science.

Protease inhibitors, which are already undergoing clinical trials as therapies to treat chronic hepatitis C infections, target an enzyme required to process viral proteins into their functional forms.

Hepatitis C virus, which is primarily transmitted by intravenous drug use, blood transfusions or blood products, as well as through sexual contact, affects 4 million people in the United States, making it the most common blood-borne infection in the nation. Hepatitis C virus is the leading cause of cirrhosis and liver cancer and accounts for more than 8,000 U.S. deaths annually.

The purpose of the study was to determine why hepatitis C virus is so persistent in human cells. Eighty-five percent of individuals exposed to the virus develop chronic infections that are unresponsive to therapy. Seventy percent of those with chronic infections develop chronic liver disease, and nearly 3 percent with long-term infections die of related illnesses, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Gale and his colleagues discovered that the virus persists, in part, because it blocks the innate immune response of infected cells. They believe this is a major reason why hepatitis C virus causes chronic infection.

Two different protease inhibitor drugs are in different stages of clinical trials. The drugs will likely be evaluated in more detail considering these findings, Gale said.

Study author Stanley Lemon, dean of medicine at UTMB and director of its National Institutes of Health-funded hepatitis research center, noted that protease inhibitors active against the AIDS virus have revolutionized the treatment of that disease.

The lead author of the study was Eileen Foy, a student in UT Southwestern's Medical Scientist Training Program. Other authors from UT Southwestern were Dr. Chunfu Wang, postdoctoral researcher in microbiology, and Rhea Sumpter Jr., student research assistant in microbiology. Other UTMB contributors were Dr. Kui Li and Dr. Masanori Ikeda, from the department of microbiology and immunology.

Cholesterol-lowering medications known as statins also play an important role in reducing levels of a strong predictor of Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study from UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas researchers.

In the current issue of the Archives of Neurology, UT Southwestern researchers report that participants who took statins lowered their brain cholesterol levels by 21.4 percent. Brain cholesterol is involved in the formation of amyloid plaques, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. Amyloid plaques are waxy buildups that harm brain cells.

Dr. Gloria Vega, is professor of clinical nutrition and the study's lead author.

There is currently no cure for Alzheimer's disease, which affects four million Americans. But this study, UT Southwestern researchers said, suggests that reducing cholesterol in the brain also can reduce plaque formation, thereby potentially reducing the severity of Alzheimer's disease.

Unlike dietary cholesterol, which is transported to the liver and excreted through the bile, the brain gets rid of cholesterol by first converting it into 24S-hydroxycholesterol, which is elevated in individuals with Alzheimer's disease. The researchers measured, through blood samples, the amount of 24S-hydroxycholesterol to determine how much cholesterol was expelled from the brain.

All three statins reduced levels of 24S-hydroxycholesterol by at least 20 percent, while 24S-hydroxycholesterol levels dropped by 10 percent with extended-release niacin.

Dr. Myron Weiner, vice chairman of clinical services in psychiatry is the lead study investigator at UT Southwestern for the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study, a National Institute on Aging multicenter study, which is evaluating whether statins play a role in slowing the progression of Alzheimer's. Results from that study are expected in the next two years.

Other researchers involved in the study included Dr. Anne Lipton, assistant professor of neurology and psychiatry; Carol Moore, research assistant in psychiatry; Doris Svetlik, a nurse administrator in psychiatry; and researchers with the Department of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Bonn Medical Center in Germany.

James T. Willerson, M.D., president of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, together with colleagues in Texas and Brazil, are reporting improved heart function in end-stage patients whose own stem cells were injected directly into their failing hearts. Willerson is the senior author of the paper and medical director and chief of cardiology for the Texas Heart Institute at St. Luke's Hospital

Research findings appear today in a rapid track report from Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. Rapid track articles are released online prior to journal publication because they have major clinical impact or represent important basic science discoveries.

The paper appears in print May 13.

Twenty-one Brazilian patients participated in the innovative study, which was conducted by researchers from the Texas Heart Institute and from the Hospital Procardiaco and the Federal University in Rio de Janeiro. Emerson C. Perin, M.D., Ph.D., director of New Interventional Cardiovascular Technology at the Texas Heart Institute, and Hans F. R. Dohmann, M.D., were the co-principal investigators who directed the clinical site investigations.

Fourteen patients received an average of 15 injections of a type of stem cell called a bone marrow mononuclear cell, taken from their own bone marrow about 4 hours before their procedure.

Perin threaded a catheter through an artery of the patient, into the left ventricle (the heart's main pumping chamber), and mapped specific areas of muscle damage. Then about two million stem cells, carrying a "marker" protein on their surface called CD34, were injected into damaged heart muscle.

Seven other patients served as a comparison, or control group, and did not receive injections of stem cells. Both groups received the same medical care and monitoring.

The clinical trial was approved by the Hospital Procardiaco ethics committee and the Brazilian National Research Ethics Council before it began.

Work on the basic research level began about eight years ago, as Houston researchers pioneered using stem cells as a carrier to deliver new genes to failing hearts. Willerson and Yong J. Geng, M.D., Ph.D., director of UT-Houston's Center for Cardiovascular Biology and Atherosclerosis Research, have been evaluating the treatment by using embryonic canine stem cells that develop into cardiovascular stem cells. In the animal model, the research team found the treatment results in a 30 percent reduction in scar tissue within the first two weeks.

At four months, the treated patients had a sustained improvement in their hearts' pumping power and ability to supply blood throughout the body. None of the treated patients had serious problems such as sustained irregular rhythms, heart attack or death during or soon after the procedure.

The reason for such improvement is still unclear. "Either these stem cells became new blood vessel and new heart muscle cells, and/or their presence stimulated the development of one or both," Willerson said.

Two patients died during the follow-up period. One control patient died two weeks after joining the study, and a treated patient died 14 weeks into the trials.

The researchers plan to expand the trial in Brazil, and to begin studying the experimental procedure soon in Houston, as well as looking for other types of adult stem cells that may be safe and useful in treating heart failure.

Physicians and recuperating patients from the clinical study in Brazil were featured April 10 in a special called "DNA: The Promise and the Price" on the Discovery Channel.

The American Heart Association reports that about 550,000 new cases of heart failure are diagnosed each year in the United States. The disease caused about 51,500 deaths in 2000.

Rice University chemists hope a new variant of vancomycin that contains buckyballs - tiny cage-shaped molecules of pure carbon - could become the world's first targeted antibiotic, creating a new line of defense against bioweapons like anthrax.

Vancomycin, which entered clinical service 40 years ago, is the antibiotic of last resort, given only when all others fail. Unfortunately, vancomycin-resistant strains of bacteria have appeared in recent years.

In an effort to reinvigorate vancomycin, researchers have created vancomycin conjugates - pairs of vancomycin molecules joined by an intermediate molecule that acts as a bridge - some of which have proven more effective at killing resistant bacteria.

Rice Chemistry Professor Lon Wilson decided to create a buckyball-vancomycin conjugate following years of work developing biochemical targeting mechanisms for buckyballs, spherical cages containing 60 carbon molecules. By linking antibodies to a buckyball with anticancer drugs attached to it, Wilson and two of his graduate students, Tatiana Zakharian and Jared Ashcroft, are creating targeted compounds that will bind only with certain cells, like those found in melanoma tumors, for example.

Weaponized anthrax is delivered in spores, a dormant form in which the disease is encased in a rugged shell. Once the spore finds its way into a living host, it germinates and becomes active.

Wilson said vancomycin can attack anthrax only after it germinates. However, having the ability to affix the antibiotic to a spore could enable the drug to knock the disease out when it tries to emerge from hibernation, before it has a chance to spread throughout the body and release its toxins.

A postdoctoral fellow in Wilson's lab, Dr. Andrey Mirakyan, recently presented preliminary results of the work at this spring's American Chemical Society annual meeting and they expect to publish research findings soon.

This research was sponsored by the Welch Foundation.