New Research Elective Approved for Second-Year Medical Students

The Biennium 1 Electives Subcommittee at WSU Boonshoft School of medicine has approved a new elective course titled “Research Learning Community 2.”  It will be listed as SMD 617 in the B1 elective catalog published later this year. It will run longitudinally from September 2011 through April 2012.

The elective for M2 students builds on the concepts and activities established in SMD 616 (Introduction to the Research Learning Community). The M2 elective provides a supportive environment for continuation or completion of research projects begun in SMD 616, but SMD 616 is not a prerequisite.

The M2 elective also supports students who have participated in research SIE’s (student initiated electives) or extracurricular research projects, and it can accommodate students looking for a research mentor during year 2. Students who have not taken WSU’s training workshop on research misconduct and the CITI course on the protection of human subjects (training included in SMD 616) will need to acquire both certifications sometime during the M2 elective.

According to the course description:

In September-December, students will participate in monthly seminars and Collaboration Labs surveying models and methodologies in translational research, clinical research, clinical trials, and evidence-based medicine. In addition, students will participate in ongoing meetings of the Translational Research Lecture Series, the Medical Student Research Club, and the Medical Student Journal Club, completing reading and reflective writing assignments associated with program content. Each student will prepare and lead a discussion of a recent research article at a seminar or Journal Club meeting.

In January-April, students will participate in skills development workshops on making and presenting scientific posters. Students will prepare a capstone project that may take several forms. Option 1 is presenting a scientific poster at the annual Medical Student Research Symposium in April. Option 2 is writing a paper on  a critically-appraised topic (CAT) in evidence-based medicine that could serve as a roadmap for a future translational research project. Option 3 is participating in a faculty-mentored research project during the academic year.

SMD 617 represents approximately 80 contact hours and counts as one of two required elective experiences in Biennium 1.

Permission of the course director is required to enroll in SMD 617. Please contact Mark Willis (937-775-3814; mark.willis@wright.edu) to schedule a meeting to discuss enrollment.

WSU Hosts Orthopaedic Research Forum

Wright State University will host Ohio Orthopaedic Research and Innovation Day on Thursday, June 2, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., in room 156 Student Union on the WSU main campus.

The program brings together engineers, orthopaedic clinicians and researchers to exchange ideas and foster innovation in orthopaedic devices that can spur economic development in Ohio. Medical students, residents and fellows, biomedical engineering students of all levels, students from biomedical sciences and advisors are invited to participate in this open forum to develop strong academic and industry partnerships within the state.

The forum will be led by Tarun Goswami, D.Sc., of the Department of Biomedical, Industrial & Human Factors Engineering, and Richard T. Laughlin, M.D., of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Sports Medicine & Rehabilitation.

The event is free for all registrants, and box lunches will be provided. Please RSVP to Dr. Goswami (tarun.goswami@wright.edu ; 937.775.5120) by Friday, May 27.

Downloads (PDF): Program Flyer | Program Agenda | Submitted Abstracts

WSU Hosts Neuroscience Day on May 20

Mary Dallman, Ph.D. (left), professor of physiology at the University of California-San Francisco, will be the keynote speaker at OMV-SfN’s 2011 Neuroscience Day on Friday, May 20, at Wright State University. Dr. Dallman’s research studies the effects of chronic stress on brain-pituitary-adrenal interrelationships.

“Chronic stress has a variety of effects on the organism, including changes in energy balance, behavior and responsivity to new stimuli,” she says. “These effects of chronic stress are probably mediated in large part by the central corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) neuronal system and glucocorticoids secreted from the adrenal gland in response to drive from hypothalamic CRF. Moreover, all of these are affected strongly by circadian rhythms.” Read more.

Neuroscience Day also will feature student presentations and a poster session. See more program details.

Registration for Neuroscience Day is free for 2011 OMV-SfN members. Please register in advance so the organizers can plan accordingly for the attendance. If you are not an OMV-SfN member for 2011, please join now. You can also join OMV-SfN at Neuroscience Day on May 20.

The Ohio Miami Valley Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience (OMV-SfN) is a nonprofit membership organization that promotes neuroscience research and education in the southwest Ohio region. The chapter’s sponsoring institutions include Miami University, the University of Cincinnati, and Wright State University.

DAGMEC Resident Research Forum Scheduled April 28

The Dayton Area Graduate Medical Education Community (DAGMEC) will present its 12th annual Resident Research Forum on Thursday, April 28, from 5:00-7:00 p.m.  Fifty-eight posters will be on display highlighting original research projects conducted by residents and fellows from Dayton area training programs. Awards will be presented at 6:40 p.m. and appetizers and other refreshments will be available.

The event will be held at the Webster Street “Top of the Market” Banquet Center, 32 Webster Street, in Dayton.  Directions can be found at http://www.topofmarket.com/directions.html.

This event is open to residents, fellows, faculty, attending physicians, medical students and other health care professionals.  No RSVPs are necessary. DAGMEC encourages you to stop by and support these research efforts.

Journal Club Meets Wednesday, April 27

The next meeting of the Medical student Journal Club will be held Wednesday, April 27, from 12:00-1:00 p.m. in 140 White Hall (Pathology Department conference room).

Two recent journal articles will be discussed:

• Wang et al. 2011
  Gut flora metabolism of phosphatidylcholine promotes cardiovascular disease. Nature. vol 472, p 57-63. 2011.
  [Presented by Lucy Shi and Vlad Karpa M1]
• Victor et al. 2011
  Effectiveness of a Barber-based intervention for improving hypertension control in black men. Archives of Internal Medicine. vol 117, p 342-350. 2011.
  [Presented by Paul BlairM2]

Links to PDFs of the articles are available on the Journal Club web page on MedU. WSU authentication is required to download them.

The Journal Club was launched in October 2010 by WSU medical student Paul Blair. M1 students Robert Beaulieu, Riyad Tayim, and Vlad Karpa will undertake leadership of the Journal Club for the next academic year.

The Journal Club is part of the Research Learning Community (RLC) at Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine.

Your Invitation to the Medical Student Research Symposium – April 21

All BSOM students and faculty are invited to attend the 3rd annual Medical Student Research Symposium on Thursday, April 21, from 5:45-8:00 p.m. in White Hall on the WSU main campus.

The symposium opens at 5:45 p.m., when 29 student research posters will be available for viewing in the White Hall Atrium. It continues at 6:00 p.m. in 101 White Hall  (Gandhi Auditorium) with welcoming remarks and the inaugural Distinguished Scholar Lecture. A poster reception follows at 6:30 p.m. in the Atrium.

The Distinguished Scholar Lecture will be presented by Katie Bullinger, an M.D./Ph.D. candidate who graduates this year from Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine.  She completed her Ph.D. research in neuroscience in 2009 in the laboratory of Timothy Cope, Ph.D. After graduation, she will begin a one-year transitional residency at Kettering Medical Center followed by a residency in interventional neurology at Emory University. At the first Medical Student Research Symposium in 2009, Bullinger won awards for Best Overall Poster and Best Presentation.

The symposium is organized by the Wright State Medical Student Research Club with support from the BSOM Office of Research Affairs.

For more information about the Medical Student Research Symposium, contact Adam Deardorff  (deardorff.2@wright.edu). Read more about previous symposia: 2009 | 2010.

AHA Sponsors Medical Student Research Scholarships

The Scientific Councils of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association want to stimulate interest, knowledge and investigative work in students in medicine, nursing, public health, nutrition and other allied health disciplines to conduct research projects related to cardiovascular disease, stroke and basic sciences early during pre-doctoral training.

AHA Council-sponsored scholarships provide valuable stipends for graduate medical students or allied health graduate students for use during a summer research project. The stipends may be used for student expenses, lab fees, or other costs incurred by the student during the project.

Eligible applicants include students in medical schools or in masters or equivalent programs in an accredited school in the United States where research training in cardiovascular disease and stroke is available.

• Student Scholarships in Cerebrovascular Disease and Stroke
  (Sponsored by the Stroke Council)
  Up to five $2000 scholarships will be available for students specifically researching cerebrovascular disease and stroke. Scholarship recipients will also have the opportunity to receive a travel grant to attend the AHA’s International Stroke Conference in 2012.
• Student Scholarships in Cardiovascular Disease
  (Sponsored by 12 AHA Scientific Councils)
  Up to twenty $2000 scholarships will be available for students researching cardiovascular disease topics within basic, clinical, or population sciences.

Applications are currently being accepted through 5:00 p.m. Central Time on Tuesday, March 1, 2011. Students may only apply for one of these programs, not both. Please visit www.americanheart.org/scholarships for more information and application instructions. Email council.awards@heart.org with questions.

Feb. 22 Lecture Surveys Medical Education Research

The next lecture in the 2010-2011 Translational Research Lecture Series is scheduled on Tuesday, Feb. 22, from 6:00-8:00 p.m. in Room 120 White Hall. The series is presented by the WSU Medical Student Research Club. All BSOM faculty and students are invited to attend.

The lecture will survey “Medical Education Research at WSU” with a panel of faculty and medical student investigators led by Nicole Borges, Ph.D. (above left), associate professor of community health and assistant dean of medical education research and evaluation.  Faculty presenters also include Gary Nieder, Ph.D., professor of neuroscience, cell biology and physiology; and Brenda Roman, M.D., professor and director of medical student education in psychiatry. Student presenters include Micah Prochaska (M4), Heather Rodabaugh (M4), and Adam Deardorff (M.D./Ph.D. student). Download the agenda (MS Word).

Dinner will be provided on Feb. 22. Please RSVP to Adam Deardorff (deardorff.2@wright.edu) if you plan to attend.

“Framing Answerable Research Questions” is the theme of the 2010-2011 Translational Research Lecture Series. Visit the Research Learning Community on MedU for the series schedule and links to videos and related reading for the lectures.

Nobel Laureate Will Present 2011 Varandani Lecture

Update 02/02/2011: With the closing of Wright State University today due to inclement weather, the Varandani lecture scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 2, has been canceled.

The 2011 Partab T. Varandani Memorial Lecture will be presented by Sir Paul Nurse, Ph.D. (left), Nobel Laureate and president of the Royal Society of London. The title of his lecture is “Controlling the Cell Cycle.” The lecture begins at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 2, in room 156 Student Union on the WSU main campus. It is free and open to the public.

The Varandani Lecture is sponsored by the Department of Biochemistry and molecular Biology in memory of the late Partab T. Varandani, Ph.D., who was professor and chief of the department’s endocrinology section until his death in 1987. For more information, contact the department at 937-775-3041.

Dr. Nurse is internationally known for his experiments on the molecular mechanisms regulating the mitotic division cycle in eukaryotic cells. In 2001, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Leland Hartwell and Timothy Hunt, for their discoveries regarding cell cycle regulation by cyclin and cyclin dependent kinases.

Dr. Nurse has served as Chair of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Oxford, Director of Research at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute), and President of Rockefeller University in New York City. In 2010 Dr. Nurse became President of the Royal Society of London, a fellowship of the world’s most eminent scientists, founded in 1660, and the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence.

It was announced in July 2010 that Dr. Nurse will also become the first Director and Chief Executive of the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation beginning in 2011. The UKCMRI will be Europe’s largest biomedical research facility with funding of nearly a billion dollars provided by a range of government and charitable organizations including the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK, the Wellcome Trust and University College London. Around 1,250 biologists, clinical scientists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists will work alongside each other at the new facility. Key objectives to Dr. Nurse are to bridge the traditional barriers between different research teams and disciplines, and to improve the dialogue between scientists and the public. Read more (PDF).

WSU Hosts Neuroscience Meeting on Jan. 28

Wright State medical students interested in neuroscience research are invited to attend the 2011 Winter Meeting of the Ohio Miami Valley Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience (OMV-SfN) on Friday, Jan. 28, from 1:00-3:00 p.m. in Room 101 White Hall (Gandhi Auditorium). The meeting will begin with 20-minute research presentations from faculty at OMV-SfN’s participating institutions:

• Zoe Hesp (Department of Zoology, Miami University)
  “Reinnervation of peripheral targets following axotomy of the superior cervical ganglion”
• Mark Baccei (Department of Anesthesiology, University of Cincinnati)
  “Pacemaker neurons in newborn spinal pain circuits.”
• James Lucot (Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Wright State University)
  “Development of a novel anti-emetic”

The chapter’s annual business meeting will follow the presentations, and WSU’s Michael Hennessy, Ph.D., will be installed as president for 2011.

You do not have to be a member of OMV-SfN to attend the presentations, although membership is necessary to vote in the business meeting. Student membership costs $5.00/year. Wright State also will host OMV-SfN’s 2011 Neuroscience Day in White Hall on Friday, May 20. Neuroscience Day is free to chapter members.