The University of New Mexico

Category Archives: Health Sciences

UNM Physician Honored by National Hispanic Medical Association

May 15, 2012 | By Steve Carr
Dr. Valerie Romero-Leggott

Dr. Valerie
Romero-Leggott

Dr. Valerie Romero-Leggott, vice chan­cel­lor for Diver­sity for UNM’s Health Sci­ences Cen­ter (HSC), received the His­panic Health Lead­er­ship Award at the National His­panic Med­ical Association’s annual con­fer­ence in Wash­ing­ton D.C. recently.

Themed, Inno­va­tions that Improve the Health of His­pan­ics, Fam­i­lies and Com­mu­ni­ties, the annual con­fer­ence award was pre­sented to out­stand­ing indi­vid­u­als across the coun­try who have played sig­nif­i­cant lead­er­ship roles in affect­ing the health of His­pan­ics and under­served com­mu­ni­ties. As Pres­i­dent of the Hispanic-Serving Health Pro­fes­sions Schools, a national orga­ni­za­tion of 22 med­ical schools and six schools of pub­lic health, Romero-Leggott was rec­og­nized for the out­stand­ing work she has done in pro­mot­ing Latino fac­ulty in the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Health Sci­ences Cen­ter and other aca­d­e­mic health insti­tu­tions across the nation, and devel­op­ing pro­grams to encour­age His­panic youth to enter health pro­fes­sions, the asso­ci­a­tion said.

A Santa Fe native and grad­u­ate of Santa Fe High School, Romero-Leggott received her B.A. degree at Har­vard Uni­ver­sity in 1982 and went on to attend UNM’s School of Med­i­cine where she received her Med­ical Degree. In addi­tion to being HSC Vice Chan­cel­lor for Diver­sity, Romero-Leggott is asso­ciate dean of the School of Med­i­cine Office of Diver­sity, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Fam­ily and Com­mu­nity Med­i­cine and exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Com­bined BA/MD Degree program.

“Hav­ing a diverse fac­ulty, stu­dent body and staff is a top pri­or­ity for UNM’s Health Sci­ences Cen­ter so that we can improve the health and well-being of the peo­ple of New Mex­ico by bet­ter under­stand­ing and work­ing with our diverse com­mu­ni­ties in this state,” says Romero-Leggott. “Every­one at the Health Sci­ences Cen­ter is com­mit­ted to this diver­sity, through our pipeline pro­grams that help steer diverse stu­dents to health careers, through assis­tance to our fac­ulty of color, and through out­reach to the community.”

Under Romero-Leggott, the Office of Diver­sity coor­di­nates a num­ber of school-year and sum­mer pro­grams to assist mid­dle school, high-school, and col­lege stu­dents from diverse back­grounds to enter and suc­ceed in careers in health sci­ences, includ­ing pro­grams to help with med­ical, phar­macy and den­tal school entrance exams. Nearly 300 stu­dents a year par­tic­i­pate in these pro­grams. The Office also sup­ports fac­ulty of color in the Health Sci­ences Cen­ter and is com­mit­ted to grow­ing the diver­sity of the work­force at the HSC.

The National His­panic Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion is a non-profit asso­ci­a­tion rep­re­sent­ing the inter­ests of over 40,000 licensed His­panic physi­cians in the United States whose mis­sion is to improve the health of His­pan­ics and the under­served. They also serve as a resource for pol­i­cy­mak­ers in Wash­ing­ton DC. For more infor­ma­tion, visit National His­panic Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion.

For more infor­ma­tion, visit HSC Office of Diver­sity.

Media con­tact: Luke Frank (505) 272‑3679; email: lfrank@salud.unm.edu

Posted in Health Sciences | |

Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter Gives Talk on Mental Illness

May 7, 2012 | By Mara Kerkez
Rosalynn-Carter-600

The Depart­ment of Psy­chi­a­try at the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico presents for­mer first lady, Ros­alynn Carter giv­ing a pub­lic talk on her lat­est book, “Within Our Reach: End­ing the Men­tal Health Cri­sis,” Mon­day, May 14 at 5:30 p.m. in Pope­joy Hall. A brief ques­tion and answer ses­sion follows.

For more than 40 years, Mrs. Carter has worked to improve the qual­ity of life for the men­tally ill around the world, a sub­ject of her recent book in which she writes, “Men­tal ill­ness is the lead­ing cause of dis­abil­ity in the United States, Canada and West­ern Europe, inflict­ing more dam­age than can­cer, heart dis­ease or diabetes.”

Mrs. Carter’s books will be avail­able for sale and, for a lim­ited time, she will be on hand to sign them.

For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact Tracy Ingalls at (505) 272‑3592 or email IDEASinPsych@salud.edu.

Posted in Events, Health Sciences | |

2nd Annual ‘There’s a Way’ Charity Golf Tournament to Benefit UNM Children’s Hospital

April 23, 2012 | By Steve Carr

Wal­greens Cor­po­ra­tion will host a char­ity golf tour­na­ment on Wednes­day, May 16 at the UNM Cham­pi­onship Golf Course to ben­e­fit the UNM Children’s Hos­pi­tal. The tour­na­ment begins with an 11 a.m. check-in and 1 p.m. shot­gun start.

A sin­gle player fee is $125 (four­some $500) which includes greens fees, cart, dri­ving range, goody bag, ham­burger lunch and New Mex­i­can din­ner. Addi­tion­ally, there will be a Walgreen’s part­ner auc­tion, silent auc­tion, prize draw­ing, clos­est to the pin and longest drive prizes and much more.

Last year Wal­greens raised more than $190,000 for the UNM Children’s Hos­pi­tal and have been active in vol­un­teer­ing for the UNMCH Radio­thon. Cur­rently, Wal­greens stores across the state are sell­ing UNM Children’s Hos­pi­tal bal­loon icons to sup­port the more that 60,000 chil­dren helped every year.

To par­tic­i­pate or for more infor­ma­tion regard­ing the golf tour­na­ment, con­tact Scott Mor­ri­son at (505) 345‑8491 or by email at mgr.07735@store.walgreens.com.

Posted in Events, Health Sciences | |

Native Medicine as a Complement to Western Medicine Topic of Lecture

April 12, 2012 | By Mara Kerkez
johnson-dennison

The Indi­ans into Med­i­cine (INMED) grant at the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Health Sci­ence Cen­ter for Native Amer­i­can Health hosts an ITV/Telehealth lec­ture from Diné College-Tsaile, “Native Med­i­cine as a Com­ple­ment to West­ern Med­i­cine” by Diné Tra­di­tional Med­i­cine Man, MEd on Mon­day, April 23 from 4:30–5:45pm.

The lec­ture will be streamed live, via inter­ac­tive tele­vi­sion, from the Ned Hatathli Cen­ter on the Diné Col­lege Tsaile cam­pus to UNM’s Domenici Cen­ter West, room 2112 on north cam­pus, and the UNM main cam­pus. Due to lim­ited seat­ing, main cam­pus stu­dents are asked to email NTsosie@salud.unm.edu for the room number.

Den­ni­son is a tra­di­tional med­i­cine man and retired coor­di­na­tor at the Office of Native Med­i­cine at the Chinle Com­pre­hen­sive Health Care Facil­ity where he coor­di­nated a Navajo tra­di­tional med­i­cine pro­gram for 11 years. He is an alum­nus of the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico with under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate degrees in Edu­ca­tional Leadership.

For more infor­ma­tion, visit:  http://hsc.unm.edu/community/cnah or call (505) 272‑4100

Posted in Events, Health Sciences | |

UNM-Sandia ‘Protocell’ May Unlock Potential of New Cancer Therapies

April 9, 2012 | By Sari Krosinsky

Ther­a­peu­tic RNAs, ribonu­cleic acids, hold great promise for treat­ing can­cer and other dis­eases. But their poten­tial has been lim­ited by the lack of effec­tive deliv­ery mech­a­nisms that both pro­tect ther­a­peu­tic mol­e­cules from the body’s nat­ural defenses and tar­get dis­eased cells. Now, a novel drug-carrying nanopar­ti­cle devel­oped by sci­en­tists at San­dia National Lab­o­ra­to­ries and the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico Can­cer Cen­ter could change that.

In a study pub­lished in the March 27 issue of sci­en­tific jour­nal ACS Nano, UNM and San­dia researchers describe how they encap­su­lated small inter­fer­ing RNAs, siR­NAs, in cancer-targeting nanopar­ti­cles to selec­tively deliver them to liver can­cer cells. The nanopar­ti­cles used in these exper­i­ments are the same inno­v­a­tive con­structs that the UNM-Sandia team unveiled last spring in the jour­nal Nature Materials.

siRNA plays an impor­tant role in RNA inter­fer­ence, a process within liv­ing cells that mod­u­lates gene activ­ity. In par­tic­u­lar, this class of RNA mol­e­cules has the abil­ity to inter­fere with or “silence” spe­cific genes. Because siR­NAs can tar­get genes of inter­est, many researchers are work­ing to har­ness these mol­e­cules to fight can­cer and other dis­eases in which gene expres­sion is a key com­po­nent. Devel­op­ing siRNA-based ther­a­pies has proved chal­leng­ing, how­ever, because nucleic acids are vul­ner­a­ble to enzy­matic diges­tion in the body.

In the UNM-Sandia research, the nanopar­ti­cles sequestered their siRNA cargo until the par­ti­cles encoun­tered, and were inter­nal­ized by, their tar­gets. Once inside the liver can­cer cells, the nanopar­ti­cles released their deadly load, a mix of siR­NAs that tar­get genes involved in cell growth and sur­vival. Within 48 hours, these genes were effec­tively silenced, and the liver can­cer cells were on the path of self-destruction.

“The great news is that our tar­geted nanopar­ti­cles address many of the defi­cien­cies that cur­rently limit the clin­i­cal use of siR­NAs,” said C. Jef­frey Brinker, San­dia fel­low, UNM regents’ pro­fes­sor of chem­i­cal and nuclear engi­neer­ing and mem­ber of the UNM Can­cer Cen­ter. “We believe these novel nanopar­ti­cles could unlock the poten­tial of ther­a­peu­tic RNAs and other ther­a­peu­ti­cally promis­ing agents for which there are, as yet, no reli­able meth­ods of delivery.”

Dubbed a “pro­to­cell,” the team’s nanopar­ti­cle has the same basic struc­ture as a liv­ing cell, though it is much sim­pler and many times smaller. Its sponge-like core has vast stor­age capac­ity rel­a­tive to its tiny size and can effi­ciently soak up and carry a wide vari­ety of substances.

Sur­round­ing the core and keep­ing its con­tents intact is a lipid bilayer, sim­i­lar in com­po­si­tion to a cell mem­brane. This mem­brane is an innocu­ous form of “pack­ag­ing” that pro­tects the pro­to­cell from attack by the body’s immune and fil­tra­tion sys­tems, allow­ing the par­ti­cles to cir­cu­late long enough to encounter can­cer cells. The bilayer sur­face can be mod­i­fied with a vari­ety of mol­e­cules, includ­ing ones that tar­get spe­cific can­cers and oth­ers that pro­mote the release of the protocell’s con­tents once the par­ti­cle is inside the can­cer cell.

To bench­mark the effi­cacy of their tar­geted pro­to­cells, the researchers com­pared the par­ti­cles’ per­for­mance with that of lipid-based nanopar­ti­cles, or “lipo­somes.” The new nanopar­ti­cles were a dra­matic improve­ment over exist­ing cutting-edge technology.

“Our siRNA-loaded pro­to­cells killed liver can­cer cells at lower doses than cor­re­spond­ing lipo­somes, with much less impact on nor­mal liver cells,” said Car­lee Ash­ley, the paper’s lead author and a Tru­man fel­low in the Biotech­nol­ogy and Bio­engi­neer­ing Depart­ment at San­dia Labs.

The pro­to­cells were not only able to encap­su­late greater amounts of siRNA than lipo­somes; they proved to be more sta­ble ves­sels, retain­ing 95 per­cent of siRNA in a sim­u­lated body fluid. They were also more effi­cient at releas­ing their cargo once inside tar­get cells.

While siRNA-loaded pro­to­cells were highly effec­tive killers of can­cer cells, they largely bypassed nor­mal liver cells. That’s because the par­ti­cles’ sur­faces are mod­i­fied with tar­get­ing mol­e­cules that specif­i­cally rec­og­nize and bind to recep­tor mol­e­cules that are over-expressed on the sur­face of can­cer­ous liver cells. It is this ligand-receptor com­ple­men­tar­ity that allows pro­to­cells to pre­cisely tar­get a given type of can­cer cell, ignor­ing nor­mal cells, which do not share the can­cer cells’ recep­tor characteristics.

The team says their lat­est results are fur­ther proof of the ver­sa­til­ity and effi­ciency of the pro­to­cell, a novel nanos­truc­ture pio­neered in recent years by mate­r­ial sci­en­tists, biol­o­gists and can­cer researchers at UNM and San­dia. In last spring’s Nature Mate­ri­als, the researchers demon­strated that their tar­geted nanopar­ti­cle could be effi­ciently loaded with a chemother­apy cock­tail and used to selec­tively kill liver can­cer cells in the lab with one mil­lion times the effec­tive­ness of exist­ing nanocar­ri­ers, while spar­ing nor­mal cells.

The new research demon­strates the suc­cess­ful deliv­ery of another type of can­cer ther­apy via the pro­to­cell. The chal­lenges pre­sented by “macro­mol­e­cule” siR­NAs are quite dif­fer­ent, and more daunt­ing, than those posed by small-molecule chemother­apy drugs. Yet the protocell’s struc­tural and chem­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics make it a deliv­ery vehi­cle of unmatched effec­tive­ness for both types of ther­a­peu­tic cargo.

The edi­tors of ACS Nano high­lighted the team’s results in an upfront write-up, as well as fea­tur­ing the pro­to­cell on the cover of the March 27 issue. “Sys­tem­i­cally deliv­er­ing can­cer ther­a­peu­tics that hone in on their tar­gets remains one of the holy grails of med­i­cine,” they wrote. The new nanopar­ti­cle is a “step toward this goal.”

“We believe we’re com­ing close to an ideal tar­geted deliv­ery plat­form that could one day rev­o­lu­tion­ize the treat­ment of can­cer and other dis­eases,” Brinker said. “The suc­cess of our work with siRNA-loaded pro­to­cells, fol­low­ing on from our ear­lier spec­tac­u­lar results with encap­su­lated chemother­a­peu­tic agents, strength­ens the case for the pro­to­cell as a uni­ver­sal nanocar­rier that could make a wide range of promis­ing ther­a­peu­tic agents avail­able for test­ing and, even­tu­ally, clin­i­cal use.”

The researchers have part­nered with the leukemia-focused research group led by Cheryl Will­man, direc­tor and CEO of the UNM Can­cer Cen­ter, to develop tar­geted pro­to­cells to treat acute lym­phoblas­tic leukemia, ALL, the most com­mon child­hood leukemia. Funded in part by a pres­ti­gious grant from the National Can­cer Institute’s Nan­otech­nol­ogy Plat­form Part­ner­ship, the researchers hope to move ALL-targeting pro­to­cells into clin­i­cal tri­als within five years.

Media Con­tacts: Dorothy Horn­beck, JKPR, (505) 797‑6673; email: dhornbeck@jameskorenchen.com or Audrey Man­ring, UNM Can­cer Cen­ter, (505) 925‑0486; email: amanring@salud.unm.edu

Posted in Health Sciences, Research | |

RWJF Center Presents ‘Roadmap to Healthy Communities’ Conference

April 5, 2012 | By Carolyn Gonzales

The RWJF Cen­ter for Native Amer­i­can Health Pol­icy presents “Roadmap to Healthy Com­mu­ni­ties”, a two-day con­fer­ence Thurs­day — Fri­day, April 12 — 13 at the Indian Pueblo Cul­tural Cen­ter. The event is free and open to the public.

The con­fer­ence offers col­lab­o­ra­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties to Native Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties, com­mu­nity mem­bers, health care pro­fes­sion­als and pol­i­cy­mak­ers to assess com­mu­nity health needs. The Roadmap con­fer­ence also offers net­work­ing and part­ner­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties between tribes, other com­mu­ni­ties, and UNM.

For more infor­ma­tion, visit the RWJF Cen­ter for Health Pol­icy web­site at: http://healthpolicy.unm.edu or email. roadmap2hc@gmail.com.

Media Con­tact: Vanessa Baca, (505) 277‑1087; email: vjbaca1@unm.edu

Posted in Events, Health Sciences | |

Cancer Center Awarded $35,908 for Hispanic/Latino Health

April 2, 2012 | By Sari Krosinsky
Check-signing ceremony at the Mexican Consulate.

Check-signing cer­e­mony at the Mex­i­can Consulate.

The Mex­i­can Con­sulate in Albu­querque awarded $35,908 to the UNM Can­cer Cen­ter to fund Ven­tanilla de Salud, or Health Win­dow, an inno­v­a­tive part­ner­ship designed to pro­vide New Mex­i­can His­pan­ics with cul­tur­ally rel­e­vant health infor­ma­tion and refer­rals to low-cost providers.

“We are very pleased to con­tinue our part­ner­ship with the Mex­i­can Con­sulate,” said Cheryl Will­man, direc­tor and chief exec­u­tive offi­cer, UNM Can­cer Cen­ter. “As the offi­cial can­cer cen­ter of New Mex­ico, the UNM Can­cer Cen­ter is com­mit­ted to deliv­er­ing world-class care to all New Mex­i­cans. This part­ner­ship is help­ing us reach our state’s large and vibrant Hispanic/Latino com­mu­nity to pro­vide poten­tially life-saving can­cer edu­ca­tion, pre­ven­tion and early detection.”

“We are delighted to carry for­ward Ven­tanilla de Salud in New Mex­ico, and grate­ful to the UNM Can­cer Cen­ter for their col­lab­o­ra­tion,” Mex­i­can Con­sul Mauri­cio Ibarra Ponce de León  said. “This pro­gram is crit­i­cal for the health and well-being of the Mex­i­can and Hispanic/Latino com­mu­nity in New Mexico.”

A track record of success

Ven­tanilla de Salud, also known as VDS, is a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort of the UNM Can­cer Cen­ter and the Mex­i­can Con­sulate. Launched in 2008, the pro­gram pro­vides health edu­ca­tion and assis­tance that is cul­tur­ally and lin­guis­ti­cally appro­pri­ate for New Mexico’s diverse Hispanic/Latino com­mu­nity. In 2009, an addi­tional VDS mobile site was added at El Paisano super­mar­kets in Santa Fe, increas­ing access for North­ern New Mexicans.

Since Ven­tanilla de Salud’s launch, more than 30,000 New Mex­i­can His­pan­ics have ben­e­fited from poten­tially life-saving health infor­ma­tion. The pro­gram focuses on four main areas of dis­ease pre­ven­tion and health pro­mo­tion to encour­age VDS clients to become active par­tic­i­pants in their own health: can­cer edu­ca­tion and pre­ven­tion, dia­betes man­age­ment, clin­i­cal tri­als edu­ca­tion and tobacco ces­sa­tion. Of par­tic­u­lar note, Ven­tanilla de Salud facil­i­tates the teach­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion of a fully trans­lated Span­ish ver­sion of the National Can­cer Institute’s “Can­cer 101” cur­ricu­lum, a gold stan­dard of can­cer edu­ca­tion. The VDS pro­gram coor­di­na­tor and pri­mary edu­ca­tor, Mónica Toquinto, was named the 2010 Com­mu­nity Health Worker of the Year by the New Mex­ico Com­mu­nity Health Work­ers Association.

The Ven­tanilla de Salud part­ner­ship between the UNM Can­cer Cen­ter and the Mex­i­can Con­sulate in Albu­querque was one of the ear­li­est pro­grams of its kind in the U.S. Other VDS sites have since opened at Mex­i­can con­sulates around the coun­try. Ven­tanilla de Salud in New Mex­ico remains a model for VDS pro­grams nation­wide; it has been rec­og­nized twice at inter­na­tional VDS gath­er­ings for its inno­va­tion and excel­lence. In August, the UNM Can­cer Cen­ter will host the national Ven­tanilla de Salud con­fer­ence, with par­tic­i­pants from all 50 Mex­i­can con­sulates and from Mexico.

Com­mit­ment to com­mu­nity part­ner­ships and outreach

The UNM Can­cer Cen­ter has a long his­tory of out­reach to all of New Mexico’s mul­ti­eth­nic and mul­ti­cul­tural com­mu­ni­ties. Its Office of Com­mu­nity Part­ner­ships & Can­cer Health Dis­par­i­ties, directed by Bar­bara Dam­ron, reaches more than 12,000 New Mex­i­cans across the state each year through its com­mu­nity ser­vice activ­i­ties, edu­ca­tional pro­grams and community-based par­tic­i­pa­tory research projects. Ven­tanilla de Salud is man­aged through this office.

“Low­er­ing can­cer rates in high-risk pop­u­la­tions and reduc­ing can­cer health dis­par­i­ties among New Mexico’s mul­ti­cul­tural and mul­ti­eth­nic com­mu­ni­ties is an essen­tial part of the UNM Can­cer Center’s mis­sion,” Dam­ron said. “By pro­vid­ing empow­er­ing health infor­ma­tion and refer­rals to low-cost providers, Ven­tanilla de Salud is help­ing us carry out that mis­sion and make a dif­fer­ence in the Hispanic/Latino community.”

The pro­gram has a mul­ti­plier effect, Dam­ron added. “The suc­cess of Ven­tanilla de Salud has been inte­gral to our efforts to attract national fund­ing for address­ing can­cer health dis­par­i­ties in New Mex­ico,” she said. “We’re able to lever­age the program’s ser­vice and achieve­ments to draw in even more resources to fur­ther improve the health knowl­edge – and health – of His­panic New Mexicans.”

Con­sul Ibarra empha­sized that “through this pre­ven­tive health pro­gram, the Con­sulate of Mex­ico, part­ner­ing with the UNM Can­cer Cen­ter, is achiev­ing one of its pri­or­i­ties in terms of directly sup­port­ing the health needs of the Mex­i­can and Hispanic/Latino com­mu­nity in New Mexico.”

Media con­tacts:
Dorothy Horn­beck, JKPR, (505) 797‑6673, dhornbeck@jameskorenchen.com
Rae Ann Paden, UNM Can­cer Cen­ter, (505) 925‑0480, rpaden@salud.unm.edu

Posted in Health Sciences | |

Medical Volunteers Assist with Bataan Memorial Death March

March 29, 2012 | By Steve Carr
MRC volunteers providing care.

MRC vol­un­teers pro­vid­ing care.

New Mex­ico Med­ical Reserve Corps (MRC) Serves, New Mex­ico Dis­as­ter Med­ical Assis­tance Team (NM-1 DMAT), Utah-1 DMAT, and other vol­un­teers of the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico recently assist the U.S. Mil­i­tary in the 2012 Bataan Memo­r­ial Death March held March 25.

The Bataan Memo­r­ial Death March is a chal­leng­ing 26.2-mile march through the high-desert ter­rain of White Sands Mis­sile Range, con­ducted in honor of the heroic ser­vice mem­bers who defended the Philip­pine Islands dur­ing World War II; sac­ri­fic­ing their free­dom, health and, in many cases, their lives.

NM MRC Serves, NM DMAT, and other vol­un­teer groups pro­vided med­ical cov­er­age to 7,000-plus par­tic­i­pants. This year, roughly 30 per­cent of par­tic­i­pants required med­ical sup­port for heat exhaus­tion, dehy­dra­tion, ortho­pe­dic injuries, skin wounds and blis­ters. Approx­i­mately 26 patients required Mede­vac trans­port, 16 ambu­la­tory and 10 Mede­vac, to local hos­pi­tals for med­ical emer­gen­cies, such as heat stroke and car­diac events.

NM MRC Serves is a statewide reg­istry of vol­un­teers who can serve dur­ing emer­gency sit­u­a­tions and assist with local pub­lic health needs. Local MRC units can be a valu­able asset for help­ing address pub­lic health con­cerns in com­mu­ni­ties through­out the year.

NM-1 DMAT – one of the nation’s most active teams – is part of the National Dis­as­ter Med­ical Sys­tem. DMATs are deployed to pro­vide med­ical sup­port to events of national sig­nif­i­cance. Teams are pre­pared to be deployed for up to 14 days at a time (plus travel on each end), to aus­tere envi­ron­ments to treat patients in dis­as­ter situations.

Both NM MRC Serves and NM DMAT are part of UNM Health Sci­ences Center’s Cen­ter for Dis­as­ter Med­i­cine. For more infor­ma­tion or to vol­un­teer, visit http://hsc.unm.edu/SOM/cdm/index.shtml.

Posted in Health Sciences, University News | |

UNM Hosts Annnual Art of Systems Biology and Nanoscience Event

March 23, 2012 | By Steve Carr
HSC_Art

The annual Art of Sys­tems Biol­ogy and Nanoscience event, spon­sored by two of UNMs inter­dis­ci­pli­nary research cen­ters includ­ing The Spa­tiotem­po­ral Mod­el­ing Cen­ter and the Can­cer Nan­otech­nol­ogy Train­ing Cen­ter, will be held Fri­day and Sat­ur­day, March 30–31 at 333 Mon­tezuma Annex in the rai­l­yard area of Santa Fe.

The Art of Sys­tems Biol­ogy & Nanoscience will fea­ture talks by two widely rec­og­nized bio­med­ical sci­en­tists includ­ing cell biol­o­gist and Howard Hughes Med­ical Insti­tute Pro­fes­sor, Ron Vale from the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia in San Fran­cisco, and com­pu­ta­tional biol­o­gist Bette Kor­ber from Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Vale’s accom­plish­ments include pio­neer­ing work with novel light micro­scopes to dis­cover and char­ac­ter­ize micro­tubule motors, the mol­e­c­u­lar machines that power processes like cell divi­sion and neurotransmission.

Kor­ber uses new data visu­al­iza­tion tech­niques to make fun­da­men­tal dis­cov­er­ies about the evo­lu­tion of viruses harm­ful to human health. The future of nan­otech­nol­ogy in med­i­cine and the beauty of nanoscale engi­neer­ing will be dis­cussed and illus­trated by Piotr Grodzin­ski, Direc­tor of the National Can­cer Insti­tute Alliance for Can­cer Nan­otech­nol­ogy. There will also be an exhibit fea­tur­ing the stun­ning sci­en­tific visu­al­iza­tions and ani­ma­tions of artist-in-residence Gra­ham Johnson.

The art show opens at 4 p.m. Fri­day, March 30 and closes at 8 p.m. Sat­ur­day, March 31. Pub­lic talks will be held at 6 p.m. Fri­day and 3 and 6 p.m. on Sat­ur­day. Kids and teach­ers are invited to enter the world of the “teeny-tiny” through inter­ac­tive exper­i­ments in nan­otech­nol­ogy on Sat­ur­day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., led by grad­u­ate stu­dents from the UNM Nanoscience and Microsys­tems degree pro­gram and the New Mex­ico Can­cer Nan­otech­nol­ogy Train­ing Cen­ter. The nanoscience pro­gram also includes a glo-fish give­away for a par­tic­i­pat­ing teacher.

The Health Sci­ences Com­mu­nity is invited to attend this free two-day event. Reg­is­tra­tion is required for the pri­vate recep­tions pre­ced­ing the evening lectures.

For more infor­ma­tion and to reg­is­ter, visit Spa­tio Tem­po­ral Mod­el­ing Cen­ter.

Posted in Campus Community, Events, Health Sciences | |

Kozoll, Champion of Change, to be Honored at White House

March 19, 2012 | By Steve Carr

The Pre­ven­tion Research Cen­ter (PRC) at the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico announced recently that Dr. Richard Kozoll, one of their com­mu­nity part­ners, has been selected as a ‘Let’s Move! and Phys­i­cal Activ­ity Cham­pion of Change,’ as part of Pres­i­dent Obama’s “Win­ning the Future” ini­tia­tive. Kozoll has been rec­og­nized for his work with Step Into Cuba, a pro­gram to pro­mote phys­i­cal activ­ity – espe­cially out­door walk­ing and hik­ing – for improved health and qual­ity of life.

The PRC has part­nered with Kozoll and the Step Into Cuba pro­gram to pro­vide evidence-based strate­gies; cre­ate and main­tain a web­site; per­form walk­a­bil­ity audits, a walk­a­bil­ity work­shop, and a health impact assess­ment; con­duct inter­views and pedes­trian counts; and begin to share lessons learned with other communities.

Kozoll has prac­ticed fam­ily and pre­ven­tive med­i­cine in the small com­mu­nity of Cuba, New Mex­ico since 1975. An avid out­doors per­son, he has increas­ingly devoted his time to cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for an active out­door lifestyle in his com­mu­nity through lead­er­ship of a Fed­eral, State and local part­ner­ship, Step Into Cuba. The pro­gram con­nects local peo­ple – espe­cially youth – to sur­round­ing pub­lic lands through trail devel­op­ment, com­mu­nity cam­paigns, point-of deci­sion prompts, exer­cise pre­scrip­tions and refer­rals, social sup­port and road­way pedes­trian enhance­ments. Step Into Cuba was awarded the 2010 Amer­i­can Trails’ national Trails for Health award. His per­sonal reward is observ­ing his neigh­bors and patients improve their health through intro­duc­tion of out­door phys­i­cal activ­ity into their lives.

On March 22, Kozoll will be hon­ored at the White House along with other lead­ers who are doing great work to increase access to phys­i­cal activ­ity for youth in their com­mu­nity. Dr. Sally M. Davis, direc­tor of the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico PRC, will attend the event rep­re­sent­ing the PRC part­ner­ship with Step Into Cuba. The Cham­pi­ons of Change pro­gram is part of an ongo­ing effort by the White House to rec­og­nize groups of Amer­i­cans, busi­nesses or orga­ni­za­tions who embody ‘Inno­vate, Edu­cate, and Build.’

Dif­fer­ent groups are high­lighted each week rang­ing from edu­ca­tors to entre­pre­neurs to com­mu­nity activists. For this event the White House Office of Pub­lic Engage­ment is part­ner­ing with the First Lady’s Let’s Move! team to host an event at the White House to honor those who are “Win­ning the Future” by empow­er­ing and inspir­ing the youth in their com­mu­ni­ties to lead active, healthy lifestyles.

To watch this event live, visit White House Live at 11:30 a.m. MDT Thurs­day, March 22.

To find out more about Cham­pi­ons of Change and Dr. Kozoll’s con­tri­bu­tions, visit Cham­pi­ons or Step Into Cuba.

For more about the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico PRC, visit Pre­ven­tion Research Cen­ter.

Posted in Campus Community, Events, Health Sciences | |