Interdisciplinary Research Ethics Grants Announced

The Center for Clinical and Translational Science and Training (CCTST) has awarded two teams with one-year, $10,000 grants through its interdisciplinary clinical/translational research ethics grant program. Erin Haynes, DrPH, of environmental health, will lead a study with co-investigator Lisa Meloncon, PhD, of the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences, on the perceptions of Appalachian Americans toward genetic research. Their ultimate goal is to develop culturally appropriate research study recruitment materials and consent documents. Jason McMullan, MD, emergency medicine, will direct a study of the impact of personal experience of traumatic brain injury on the acceptance of research conducted with exception from informed consent. Co-investigators are emergency medicine colleagues Opeolu Adeoye, MD, and Christopher Lindsell, PhD, and Mary Brydon-Miller, PhD, of the College of Education, Criminal Justice and Human Services. Additional requests for applications will be issued in the future. For more information, visit cctst.uc.edu.

Filak Wins Courage to Lead Award

Andrew Filak, MD, senior associate dean for academic affairs, has received the 2009 Parker J. Palmer Courage to Lead Awardfrom the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). Filak received the $1,000 award during the 2009 ACGME Annual Educational Conference, which took place March 5–8 in Grapevine, Texas. The annual award is given to ACGME-accredited residency program leaders who work to create an optimum learning environment for residents; encourage the ethical, professional and personal development of residents; and ensure safe and appropriate patient care. The ACGME is a private, nonprofit organization that accredits approximately 8,400 residency programs in 126 specialties and subspecialties that educate 107,000 residents. Its mission is to improve the quality of health care in the United States by assessing and advancing the quality of resident physicians’ education.

Osher Wins Innovator Award

Robert Osher, MD, professor of ophthalmology and medical director emeritus of the Cincinnati Eye Institute, has received the Charles D. Kelman Innovator’s Award from the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery (ASCRS). The award is the highest honor given by the ASCR, the largest, independent, nonprofit organization that disseminates information about ophthalmic surgery to other doctors. Osher, one of only two Americans to ever receive this honor, has achieved worldwide recognition as a leader in cataract surgery. He has designed many of the contemporary intraocular lenses and instruments used in cataract surgery, in addition to developing new techniques in this subspecialty.

Medical Student Earns Research Fellowship Grant

Francis Huttinger, a first-year medical student, has been awarded a $2,500 Medical Student Summer Research Fellowship by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. The grants, provided through the Neurosurgery Research and Education Foundation, were awarded to 15 medical students from the United States and Canada. The fellowship will enable Huttinger to spend the summer conducting research with Kenneth Strauss, PhD, research associate professor of neurosurgery and director of the Mayfield Neurotrauma Research Lab. Huttinger’s research will explore whether the delivery of small interfering RNA, via liposomes, limits gene expression of COX2 following traumatic brain injury (TBI) in an animal model. Evidence strongly suggests that the over-expression of COX2 following TBI adversely affects functional recovery.


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