2011 Finds UAMS Mission Focused

By David Robinson

Dec. 27, 2011 | Achievements in patient care, scientific research and health care education  made 2011 a good year for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).

Among the year’s highlights was the April celebration of reaching the highest point of construction in a four-floor, $30.4 million expansion to the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging.

The expansion, slated for completion in early 2012, will allow much-needed growth of geriatric clinical, academic and research programs. UAMS’ mission is to improve health and health care in Arkansas through a focus on those type endeavors. Some initiatives, such as the Instituted on Aging project, encompassed more than one.

Each new floor of the expansion will have its own focus, with interdisciplinary research on the fifth floor; cardiovascular aging research and basic science on the sixth floor; translational research (integrating research into clinical trials) on the seventh floor; and the Arkansas Aging Initiative, community outreach and administrative offices on the eighth floor.

Construction is funded by part of a $33.4 million Donald W. Reynolds Foundation gift announced in June 2009. The gift included $3 million to the Arkansas Aging Initiative, a program of the Institute on Aging that oversees eight Centers on Aging across Arkansas.

Also in 2011, the internationally known UAMS Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy marked another milestone in its 22-year history with treatment of its 10,000 multiple myeloma patient. Established in 1989, the Myeloma Institute was the first center in the world devoted exclusively to research and clinical care of multiple myeloma and related disorders.

Myeloma pioneer Bart Barlogie, M.D., Ph.D., the institute’s founder and director, said continued aggressive research and treatment at the institute has significantly expanded scientific knowledge of the disease while leading to higher survival rates. Patients have come to the Myeloma Institute from every state and more than 50 countries.

In 2011, UAMS established the Translational Research Institute, its seventh institute. The institute’s purpose is to reduce and/or remove barriers to conducting health care research; foster collaborations with other universities and organizations to speed the development of new therapeutic agents; support clinicians and scientists who perform research that leads to advanced medical treatments; and identify evidence-based approaches that lead to improved community health.

The UAMS College of Medicine garnered national recognition in 2011 as one of the top 10 producers of family medicine physicians. For a three-year-period ending October 2010, 15.8 percent of College of Medicine graduates entered first-year family medicine residency programs.

The American Academy of Family Physicians has recognized UAMS for the achievement 18 of the last 21 years.

Among the many research-related highlights of the year, UAMS signed a two-year, $4.5 million contract with the federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to proceed with advanced development of a promising treatment for use in radiological or nuclear emergency situations.

Under the contract, UAMS’ Martin Hauer-Jensen, M.D., Ph.D., an internationally renowned radiation researcher, will lead the evaluation of the drug, SOM230, or pasireotide, to treat gastrointestinal injuries after radiological or nuclear accidents or terrorist attacks. The contract’s value will rise to nearly $13 million assuming that two 12-month option periods are exercised.

Other accomplishments include:

Patient Care

  • Twenty-eight Arkansas hospitals joined a partnership with the UAMS Center for Distance Health, the state Department of Human Services, and Sparks Regional Health System in Fort Smith to provide life-saving emergency care for stroke patients. The AR SAVES (Arkansas Stroke Assistance through Virtual Emergency Support) program uses a high-speed video communications system to help provide immediate, life-saving treatments to stroke patients 24 hours a day.
  • UAMS celebrated the opening of the statewide Cord Blood Bank of Arkansas. which collects, processes and stores donations harvested after the birth of healthy children. Cord blood has the potential to drastically change the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans through its use in bone marrow transplants and has tremendous promise for regenerating diseased or injured tissues.
  • UAMS dedicated a new, larger home for the Morrilton clinic in its KIDS FIRST program of the Department of Pediatrics in the UAMS College of Medicine that provides services to children with special health care needs and their families. The 11,000-square-foot facility is larger than the clinic’s previous location and can accommodate an expanding enrollment. It was dedicated to the memory of longtime program champion and Morrilton native, Robert H. Fiser Jr., M.D.
  • In September, UAMS became the first hospital in Arkansas and one of the few in the country to have a full-size, wide-bore MRI unit with a larger opening to accommodate patients for scans. The unit, with a 1.5 Tesla strength magnet, also featured a new digital imaging technology that allows a reduced scan time.
  • UAMS Medical Center became the first in Arkansas and one of a handful of medical centers in the country offering a new surgical alternative to treat lymphedema, the chronic arm swelling frequently associated with breast cancer treatment.
  • UAMS Medical Center became the only adult hospital in Arkansas to have its echocardiography service accredited by the Intersocietal Commission for the Accreditation of Echocardiography Laboratories (ICAEL).
  • UAMS Medical Center ranked as having the top hospital out of 23 hospitals in the Little Rock metropolitan area in the U.S. News & World Report’s 2011-12 Best Hospital rankings. The publication recognized the hospital as “high performing” in four specialties: cancer, obstetrics/gynecology, ear/nose/throat (ENT) and nephrology (kidney).

Education

  • Two of the five UAMS colleges celebrated anniversary milestones in 2011. The College of Health Related Professions, which today includes 21 academic programs, celebrated its 40th anniversary. The Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health marked its 10th year.
  • Two UAMS colleges welcomed new leadership in 2011. Lorraine Frazier, Ph.D., R.N., became dean of the College of Nursing in October. Douglas Murphy, Ph.D., became dean of the College of Health Related Professions in February.  
  • UAMS opened a new, larger Simulation Center, the state’s only comprehensive adult medical Simulation Center with computerized, life-like manikins for hands-on training of students, faculty and staff. The 7,800-square-foot center is housed in renovated space formerly occupied by the Emergency Department.
  • Two programs received grants to train more health care professionals. A $1 million grant to the College of Medicine from Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield will help increase the number of primary care physicians in the state. The Arkansas Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence (HCGNE), part of the College of Nursing, received a nearly $370,000 grant to increase the number of geriatric nursing faculty in Arkansas.
  • A third Schmieding Home Caregiver Training Program opened in February, this one in Texarkana. A $3 million grant in 2009 from the Reynolds Foundation to the Arkansas Aging Initiative of UAMS enabled the expansion of the Schmieding program, which provides training for caregivers to allow the elderly to stay longer in their homes. Sites were established in Jonesboro in April 2010, then Pine Bluff in October 2010.
  • UAMS named neonatologist Billy Thomas, M.D., M.P.H., its first vice chancellor for diversity. The appointment expanded the UAMS Center for Diversity Affairs, which began in 1970 in the College of Medicine, as a resource on diversity issues for the entire campus.
  • UAMS awarded certificates and degrees to 862 graduates of its five colleges and graduate school during its May commencement ceremony. Fred W. Smith, chairman of the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation Board of Trustees, received an honorary doctorate in recognition of his longtime support of UAMS and better health for Arkansans.

Research

  • The Institute on Aging received a $5.5 million grant for a new research center to improve standards of care for the elderly. The five-year grant from the National Institute on Aging established the Arkansas Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC) at UAMS, one of 12 such centers in the United States focused on finding ways to better maintain or restore independence to older people.
  • A startup company in the UAMS BioVentures business incubator, PhytoTEK, earned a top-three finish in a prestigious Harvard business plan competition. PhytoTEK is investigating new plant-based biofilm inhibitors useful for preventing staph infection. Cassandra Quave, Ph.D., a UAMS postdoctoral fellow, is CEO and chief scientist for PhytoTEK.
  • Another BioVentures startup, Acetaminophen Toxicity Diagnostics, LLC, was awarded a $1.69 million federal grant for research and testing in the development of a test to diagnose acetaminophen liver injury. The company, based in the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute, has been working on development of a commercial dipstick test that can diagnose acetaminophen-induced liver injury within 20 minutes.
  • The prestigious journal Nature published research coauthored by UAMS’ Paul D. Drew, Ph.D., of a promising new compound for treating multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases. The study of the new compound, known as SR1001, included the expertise in animal studies of Drew, whose research is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
  • UAMS’ Appathurai Balamurugan, M.D., M.P.H., reported that melanoma skin cancer survivors are much more likely than the general population to have future new cases of invasive melanomas and other cancers. Published in the November issue of the Journal of American Academy of Dermatology, the study assessed the risk of new cancers among 116,922 melanoma survivors across the United States.
  • A researcher in the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health found that enhancing access to home and community-based health care services to the disabled and elderly can save millions in the Arkansas Medicaid program. The study’s key finding showed that the state’s Medicaid system had a net savings of more than $2.6 million over three years when Medicaid-eligible elderly and disabled adults with unmet long-term care needs in a three-county area were sought out and connected to home and community-based long-term care services.
  • UAMS researchers seeking to isolate the cellular trigger for the constant bone renewal process in the skeleton found that cells embedded within the bone are an unexpected source of a protein that is a key player in the process. Understanding the ongoing cellular processes of bone destruction and renewal, called bone remodeling, could lead to new treatments for diseases such as bone-weakening osteoporosis, said Charles O’Brien, Ph.D., a professor in the UAMS College of Medicine and a scientist in the UAMS Center for Osteoporosis and Metabolic Bone Diseases.
  • A team of UAMS researchers studying Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) in the Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute identified new vessel growth by a compound that ultimately could lead to a better understanding of how AMD is formed and more effective wound care. The team found that when injected into the eye, the compound polyethylene glycol (PEG) produces new blood vessels by activating the complement system, which is a devastating trait of several diseases, including cancer and AMD.
  • Marjan Boerma, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the College of Pharmacy, received an international award recognizing her research of heart disease caused by radiation treatment. Boerma received the Michael Fry Research Award from the Radiation Research Society recognizing a junior scientist who made extraordinary contributions to the field of radiation research.
  • A clinical trial on a first-of-its-kind treatment for multiple myeloma is now under way at the Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy, using supercharged immune cells known as natural killer cells to attack cancer cells. The trial, led by Bijay Nair, M.D., assistant professor of medicine in the College of Medicine, builds on a small-scale trial at the Myeloma Institute in 2006 – as well as laboratory research on myeloma cells – that showed the natural killers could recognize and kill tumor cells.