2007 Maryland Magazine

MARYLANDuniversity of

baltimore

f o r a l u m n i a n d f r i e n d s o f t h e m e d i c a l , l a w , d e n t a l , p h a r m a c y,n u r s i n g , g r a d u a t e , s o c i a l w o r k , a n d p u b l i c h e a l t h s c h o o l s

r e s e a r c h a n d s c h o l a r s h i p | 2007

Making an Impact for 200 Years

MARYLANDuniversity ofresearch and scholarship | 2007 baltimore

2 Building the Future of Dentistry

6 Minimally Invasive Surgery Techniques

10 School of Medicine Enters the “Reece” Era

11 Taking Environmental Law to the Limit

15 Putting Patients First: Clinical Nurse Leaders

17 Nursing School Offers Practice-Focused Doctorate

20 Child Services Expert Is New Dean of Social Work

21 Mental Health Services for African-American Youth

24 Maryland Poison Center Is Everyone’s Resource

40 Breast Cancer Researcher Leads Quiet Revolution

44 New Frontiers in Dental Research and Education

46 Genetic Testing in the Courtroom

48 Targeting the Effects of Mass Radiation

51 School of Public Health Addresses Diverse Populations

52 UMB BioPark Flourishes

53 Nanomedicine Center Links to Pharmaceutical Company

5 DENTAL ANNA MUENCH

14 LAW AARON MERKI

19 NURSING FELECIA & JEENE BAILEY

23 SOCIAL WORK TAL SHTULMAN

26 PHARMACY DANIELLE LAVALLEE

43 MEDICINE AUDREY SEGAL

STUDENT PROFILES

DEPARTMENTS

50 PROFILES IN GIVING

56 FOUNDERS WEEK AWARD WINNERS

60 UNIVERSITY LEADERSHIP

62 RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

63 UMBF ANNUAL REPORT

F E A T U R E S

COVER PHOTOGRAPH: DAVIDGE HALL, 1891ILLUSTRATION BY EMERY PAJER

27 Celebrating 200 Years of Excellence:1807-2007

S P E C I A L S E C T I O N

W elcome to a very exciting year at the University of Maryland, Baltimore! 2007will be a year filled with enterprise and new ideas—and celebrations of ourremarkable history and vision.

Nearly 200 years ago, a small group of dedicated Baltimore physicians began theinstruction of medical students at the College of Medicine of Maryland. Five yearslater, in 1812, the University of Maryland received its charter. That same year thestructure now known as Davidge Hall was erected at Lombard and Greene streets—and the University of Maryland was born.

The building featured on the cover of this issue of Maryland magazine is our mosttangible link to those early medical pioneers. But Davidge Hall is much more than abuilding named after the founder and dean of the nation’s first public medical school—it is an enduring symbol of the many lives that have been enriched through our mission of education, research, public service, and patient care.

Those founders from two centuries ago would be astounded if they could viewour vibrant campus today. From their determined efforts to educate physicians usingsound scientific principles, the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) has evolvedinto a dynamic multidisciplinary campus of 60 acres with seven professional schools,more than 5,600 students, and 6,600 faculty and staff.

As we celebrate the bicentennial of our School of Medicine, our vision is focusedfirmly on the future. Just as Davidge Hall was hailed as an architectural and techno-logical marvel of its time, so too is our new Dental School setting trends for dentaleducation and clinical care worldwide. In the new building, faculty and clinicians notonly educate the majority of Maryland’s dentists, but they also treat more than35,000 Marylanders annually.

In keeping with our integrated mission of education, research, and service, weopened our seventh professional school, the School of Public Health, in 2006. Thenew school will implement an interdisciplinary approach to tackle the tough publichealth issues facing our city and state. Also in 2006, we welcomed two dynamic deansto our campus: E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, as vice president for medicalaffairs at the University of Maryland, John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers DistinguishedProfessor, and dean of the School of Medicine; and Richard P. Barth, PhD, MSW,dean of the School of Social Work.

Our pioneering efforts to build a thriving biotechnology community in WestBaltimore are meeting with great success. In the UMB BioPark’s Building One, bio-medical researchers are collaborating with biotechnology leaders to develop treatmentsfor some of society’s major diseases. The BioPark is flourishing, and Building Two,which will house our School of Public Health, will open later this year.

In the following pages, you can read about the accelerated progress of the BioPark,meet our visionary new deans, and learn about the exciting research and innovativeprograms at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. As we enter the first year of ourfive-year bicentennial celebration, I invite you to celebrate along with us all that wehave accomplished and will accomplish well into the future.

Sincerely,

David J. Ramsay, DM, DPhilPresident

Celebrating a Proud History and Dynamic Vision

P R E S I DE N T ’S M E S S AG E

Amid a tower of concrete, steel, brick, and glass,Dean Christian S. Stohler, DMD, DrMedDent,waxes philosophic about the new state-of-the-art University of Maryland Dental Schoolbuilding. As technology has shaped the building

and the work that happens inside, the building will also helpshape the future of research, teaching, and clinical dentalcare around the world.

Setting the TrendsThe new facility encompasses 375,000 square feet, mak-

ing it just under the size of Baltimore’s World Trade Center.The building cost is $141.7 million, with $120.2 millioncoming from the state and $21.5 coming from private fundsraised by the University of Maryland, Baltimore. More thanjust an impressive structure, the building facilitates increasedinteraction among faculty, staff, and students.

“This building has become the trendsetter for all the othersthat are being built,” Stohler says. And if another dentalschool has something of interest to Maryland students, lessonsand techniques can be beamed in. “The new building is aplatform that is independent of space,” says Stohler.

The Dental School building, which opened in earlySeptember 2006, and its technology are certainly impressive.Above a ground floor with classrooms and services, there arenine additional levels of clinical and research space toppedby a soaring mechanical penthouse that can be illuminated—lantern style—in the West Baltimore sky. Steel panels on thesides and atop the building reflect southern light into a central atrium. There are 324 patient-care stations whereMaryland residents, many of whom cannot afford dentalcare elsewhere, are treated with the most modern medicalequipment available.

People with conditions such as HIV or a developmentaldisability can have their oral health care needs met safely andsecurely in special patient care areas. And should a healthcrisis that affects many people arise, the building can be usedas an emergency treatment center.

Training With the Latest TechnologySchool officials were pleasantly surprised when the

Finnish company Planmeca won a competition to customizeand outfit the School’s dental stations with an $8.4 millionbid, significantly below the Dental School’s estimate. AndNobel Biocare, a Swiss company with offices around theworld, is providing the technology for students to make dental implants with far greater precision and in far less timethan traditional methods.

The dental clinic’s equipment is more up to date than

equipment used in most private dental offices today. Whengraduates enter the dental profession, many will be workingwith earlier-generation technology. But Stohler predicts thatthis will change as the graduates push for state-of-the-artequipment in their workplaces. “That’s exactly what BillGates says: ‘Obsolescence drives the market,’” says Stohler.

In the Dental School’s classrooms, clinical stations, andlabs, information can be instantly computerized and analyzed.Under direct faculty supervision, students learn how to conduct an examination just as a fully trained dentist would.And by working on lifelike human heads that are positionedjust as patients’ heads would be positioned during an exam,students gain proficiency in work areas that more closelyresemble real clinical care stations.

When a student is ready to work on patients—still underdirect faculty supervision—the transition is easier becausethe student has trained with the same equipment under sim-ilar circumstances. Stohler compares it to a pilot learning ona realistic simulator before getting into an airplane—andeventually flying solo. “It’s bringing instruction to a higherlevel,” he says.

On the building’s upper floors, Dental School researcherswork in spaces built to their specifications as they conductinvestigations in areas ranging from neuroscience to molecu-lar and cell biology studies and infectious diseases andimmunology. Recent advances in the understanding of pain,for example, have come from Dental School researchers.

Along with the enhanced physical presence that the newDental School building brings, the possibilities that a newgeneration of technology-savvy students will bring to theSchool energizes the dean. He anticipates nothing less than anew paradigm in how students will shape the School. “Thesestudents are our partners now.”

The transition from the School’s 41-year-old building,which would have needed $60 million in renovations just tobring it into compliance with building codes, did not comewithout some discomfort. The move forced departmentchairs and faculty to assess what would be important—andwhat would be de-emphasized—as the School moves forward,Stohler says. That process created “a wonderful opportunity …to re-engineer the institution,” he says.

Building Private SupportThe dean and Dental School administrators watched

private financial support grow substantially as the building,which was in the planning stages for nearly a decade, movedcloser to its opening. “When you project a new line for dentistry,a new path, people want to be a part of it,” says Stohler.

Generous gifts from Dental School alumni have ensured

2 U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A R Y L A N D, B A L T I M O R E PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND DENTAL SCHOOL

Building the Future of

2007 R E S E A R C H & S C H O L A R S H I P 3

B Y J E F F R E Y R A Y M O N D

DENTISTRY

Left: The central atrium in the new Dental Schoolreflects light throughoutthe 12-story structure.

Above: The new buildingencompasses an entireblock on Baltimore Street.

Right: Dental SchoolProfessor Linda Otisadjusts the radiograph totake a scan of patientSarah Hamad’s teeth.

2007 R E S E A R C H & S C H O L A R S H I P 5PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBERT BURKE

Some students dream about taking a break from their aca-demic routine. In 2006-2007, second-year dental studentAnna Muench is doing just that.

Named as a 2006 Howard Hughes Medical Institute(HHMI) Research Training Fellow, Muench is taking a breakfrom her academic routine to hone her research skills.

The coveted fellowships, which are almost exclusivelyawarded to medical students, include a $25,000 stipend to support full-time training in fundamental biomedical research.With its mission of enhancing science education and integrat-ing medicine into biomedical research training, HHMI hasawarded more than $1 billion in grants since 1988.

“It’s an incredible honor,” says Muench. “I do feel a specialsense of pride being a dental student and receiving this award. I am thankful for the strong research influence at the DentalSchool, which has provided me with the opportunity to conductmy HHMI research project here under the direction of MarkShirtliff, PhD.” Shirtliff is an assistant professor in theDepartment of Biomedical Sciences in the Dental School.

Research results from the talented dental student already havebeen published in Neuroscience. Her current research, “Determinationof the Phenotypic Effect of Mutation in Genes Shown to beUp-regulated in Staphylococcus aureus Biofilms,” examines theup-regulation of genes that cause the development of biofilm—a thin layer of cells, usually micro-organisms—that can coat asurface and cause infection on implants and medical devices.

“I am hoping to identify the genes responsible for biofilmformation that affect biofilm viability and could possibly act astargets for antimicrobial and antibiofilm removal strategies,”Muench says.

Her investigations have the potential to lead to new thera-peutic targets for removal of biofilm infections, particularly

those occurring in the mouth, says Ronald Dubner, DDS,PhD, professor and chair of the Department of BiomedicalSciences. Many chronic infections are caused by biofilms, whichare resistant to removal by the host immune system and can onlybe eliminated by surgical removal of dead tissue, notes Dubner.

Dean Christian S. Stohler, DMD, DrMedDent, describesMuench as a “rare, remarkable student. She not only appreci-ates modern science and biotechnology, but she also demonstratesa unique ability to project the impact of scientific trends on thefuture of dentistry.”

The goal of the HHMI fellowships is to strengthen andexpand the nation’s pool of medically and dentally trainedresearchers. According to HHMI Program Officer Anh-Chi Le,PhD, 66 fellowship awards were given to researchers enrolledin a U.S. medical or dental school. “This is the first year wehave made awards to two of the three dental student applicants,”says Le.

Muench also participated in the National Institute ofDental and Craniofacial Research Short-term ResearchTraining Program in 2005 and 2006. Her 2005 projectinvolved the genetic knockouts of a biofilm-producing strain ofbacteria that causes chronic infection. A genetic knockout is anorganism in which the genetic material has been altered by site-directed recombination so that the gene is deleted.

“Anna was able to enter the lab and assume completeresponsibility and independence in the project, all withabsolute success,” says Shirtliff.

In May 2007, fellows will convene at HHMI headquartersin Chevy Chase, Md., for an awards ceremony and to presenttheir research.

Muench plans to resume her studies at the Dental Schoolin fall 2007 and graduate with the Class of 2009. c

Research Year Yields Practical Results, Personal HonorsB Y R E G I N A L A V E T T E D A V I S

4 U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A R Y L A N D, B A L T I M O R E

S T U DE N T P R OF I L E A N NA M U E N C H DE N TA L S C HO OL

Wilhelma “Billie” Garner-Brown, MEd, an administratorwith the school since 1980.

“It took me completely by surprise,” says Garner-Brown. “I feel honored and grateful that the studentsthought of me, and that what I wanted to accomplish forthem here has been achieved.”

Official DedicationThe Dental School hosted an official dedication of the

new building Oct. 24, during a weeklong celebration thatincluded the dean’s State-of-the-School Address and theHayden-Harris Associates Gala. The events culminatedwith the alumni board meeting and annual meeting, andthe White Coat ceremony, which welcomed the first groupof student “partners” to the new Dental School. c

the development of faculty and student spaces, scholarships,and future technology needs. With a $1 million bequest,Harry W. F. Dressel, Jr., DDS, Class of 1945, has estab-lished a technology endowment fund for future technologyenhancements.

A member of the Class of 1955, Maurice Lussier,DDS, has made a bequest of more than $1 million thatprovides funds for a lecture hall, a student lounge, andscholarship funds for dental students. The new facility’s150-seat lecture hall was named in honor of the DentalSchool’s Alumni Association through a significant bequestfrom Howard B. Wood, DDS, Class of 1956.

A group of minority alumni collected a gift of morethan $100,000 and named a study center in the build-ing in honor of Executive Assistant to the Dean

Top right: Associate Professor StuartJosell (left) and first-year resident LisaBlickley (right) with Tamia Williams,the first pediatric patient treated in thenew clinical setting

Bottom left: President David Ramsay;Jessie Krupkin, Dental Hygiene, Class of2007; and wife of Gov. Robert Ehrlich,Kendel Ehrlich, release banners at thegrand opening of the new Dental Schoolbuilding in October 2006.

Bottom right: Maureen and MauriceLussier attend the opening ceremony at the new school.

Dean Christian Stohler addresses the audience at the opening ceremony. Clinical lab

PHOTOGRAPHS BY BILL MCALLEN (4)

6 U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A R Y L A N D, B A L T I M O R E PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARC LAYTAR, UMMC 2007 R E S E A R C H & S C H O L A R S H I P 7

When Thomas Tantulo was told that his left anterior descending (LAD)artery was 85 percent blocked by atherosclerotic plaque, open-heartsurgery was not his first choice of treatment options.

Known as the “widow maker,” the LAD is one of the main arteriessupplying the heart. The “gold standard” treatment is an operation to

re-route the blood supply around blocked arteries to restore perfusion to oxygen-starvedheart muscle, a procedure known as coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. About500,000 CABG procedures are performed every year in the United States.

Tantulo worked in hospitals during his training as a chaplain, and the 60-year-oldMiddletown, Conn., resident knew that he had to carefully consider his treatment options.“I wanted to do the least invasive, least traumatic thing to my body,” Tantulo says.

He wanted to avoid the chest soreness of open-heart surgery if possible. More impor-tant, as a survivor of blood cancer, he wanted to avoid the risks of the heart bypassmachine that is used to support the patient during open CABG surgery.

Instead, Tantulo was interested in a relatively new and unusual procedure known asminimally invasive direct coronary artery bypass (MIDCAB). The operation is donethrough small incisions between the ribs, eliminating the discomfort of cracking the chest.And it is done “off-pump,” without the bypass machine, while the heart is still beating.

Minimally Invasive SurgeryTechniques Reduce Riskfor Heart PatientsB Y B R U C E G O L D F A R B

Cardiac surgeon Robert Poston (second from right) adjusts the camera angle during robot-assisted coronary artery bypass surgery.

Keyhole SurgeryAt the University of Maryland School of Medicine (SOM)

clinical faculty practice within the University of MarylandMedical Center (UMMC), where doctors and surgeons aredevising better ways of doing heart surgery. “The thing aboutheart surgery is that you don’t get a second chance. It’s pretty precious stuff,” says Robert Poston, MD, assistant professor ofsurgery in the School of Medicine and cardiac surgeon at themedical center.

“We have a number of programs focused on minimizingincisions and doing things through smaller and smaller holes,”says Poston. “We’re making a major part of our plan for thefuture focused on minimally invasive surgery.”

In the lab, Poston and his colleagues are working on thenext wave of care—futuristic emerging technologies that pushthe limits of minimally invasive surgery to ever smaller andmore precise scales.

A unique collaboration between cardiac surgeons andinterventional cardiologists is leading to treatment options forpeople with coronary artery disease—and other diseases of theheart and blood vessels—that are safer, more effective, andmore comfortable than traditional approaches.

Newer alternatives to CABG include percutaneous trans-luminal coronary angioplasty (PCTA). While the patient issedated in the cardiac catheterization lab, a thin catheter isthreaded through a leg vein into the heart. When placedwithin the coronary artery, a balloon is inflated to widen theblood vessel and restore circulation to oxygen-deprived heartmuscle.

Other percutaneous methods to restore circulation in coronary arteries include removing blockages with a laser orsmall cutting tool or inserting a tiny wire-mesh tube called astent. Newer models of “drug-eluting” stents are coated withmedication to keep vessels from becoming blocked again.

The MIDCAB “keyhole” surgery has been performed on more than two dozen patients, including Tantulo, by surgeons on the School of Medicine faculty. Working withminiaturized instruments through an incision only three tofour inches wide, the surgeon moves the left internal mam-mary artery—one of several large blood vessels inside thechest—so that it feeds into the coronary circulation.

Performing the surgery while the heart is still beating alsoeliminates the risks of using a heart-lung machine. A smallbut significant number of patients experience lingering effectsfrom the heart-lung machine that include the formation ofsmall clots that can affect the brain, kidneys, or lungs.

“Regular open-heart surgery is a morbid operation thatinvolves cooling the body and stopping the heart,” explainsPoston. “Instead of shutting down the whole circulatory system, the MIDCAB operation can be done without a heart-lung machine.”

Still considered investigational, MIDCAB can be used torestore circulation to the left anterior descending artery,which is the main blood vessel supplying the left side of the

Top: Robert Poston manipulates the arms of the da Vinci S SurgicalSystem robot through a computer-controlled console in the operatingroom. He can monitor his actions through a video monitor. The devicefilters the surgeon’s hand tremors and “scales down” large movement tothe more precise actions required for a minimally invasive procedure.

Bottom: Laparoscopic screen as viewed from the computer consolevideo monitor, showing the position of robotic surgical instruments during surgery

heart. A second blood vessel can often be bypassed by re-routingthe right internal mammary artery from the other side of thechest.

“The left mammary graft is superior to other bypass procedures, and perhaps better than drug-eluting stents,” sayscardiologist Barry Reicher, MD, assistant professor of medi-cine at the School of Medicine and cardiac catheterizationspecialist at UMMC. The MIDCAB procedure “is verypromising,” he says. “Despite the benefits of drug-elutingstents, they are not the Holy Grail.”

Tantulo was walking within 10 hours of undergoing sur-gery. Unlike patients who can expect weeks of soreness andrecuperation from open-heart surgery, patients who undergoa minimally invasive procedure are often back to their normaldaily routine within a day or two. “I felt great,” he says. “Itwas a wonderful experience.”

Hybrid ProcedurePatients with multiple blocked coronary arteries can

receive an innovative “hybrid” procedure that combinesMIDCAB with a stent to keep narrowed heart arteries open.Once the cardiac surgeon completes the bypass part of thesurgery, the interventional cardiologist then inserts a stent.

The hybrid procedure results in “less morbidity, less pain,less recovery time, less blood loss, and shorter intensive careunit stays,” says Reicher. “This gives the patients the best ofboth worlds.”

In order to perform the hybrid surgery, an operating roomis equipped with fluoroscopic imaging technology and otherequipment typically found in the cardiac catheterization labo-ratory. “It’s the operating room of the future, with a cath labbuilt right in,” Poston says.

The operating room facility is also used to repair aorticaneurisms, a dangerous thinning of the main artery as itleaves the top of the heart. The cardiac surgeon replaces thedamaged blood vessel with durable synthetic material, and theinterventional cardiologist makes the connections to thecarotid arteries that deliver blood to the head and neck.

A minimally invasive approach is used to repair the mitralvalve, the in-flow valve for the left side of the heart, whichcan become narrowed or leaky. About 250,000 people a yeardevelop a leaky mitral valve, which, if left unchecked, canlead to an enlarged heart and heart failure.

Typically treated through open-heart surgery, Universityof Maryland physicians perform about 90 percent of mitralvalve repairs through a small incision in the patient’s armpit.A miniaturized camera is slipped through tubes into the chestcavity, and the surgeon performs the operation through smallincisions while watching on a video monitor—similar toworking the controls of a video game.

However, doing minimally invasive surgery takes morethan fine motor skills. Minimally invasive surgery requires ahigher level of expertise and a solid foundation in traditionalsurgical technique.

“One of our great challenges is to train the next genera-

8 U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A R Y L A N D, B A L T I M O R E PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARC LAYTAR, UMMC (TOP); ED BENNETT, UMMC (BOTTOM) 2007 R E S E A R C H & S C H O L A R S H I P 9

tion of surgeons to use these techniques,” says Poston.“Patients are demanding smaller incisions, but our traineesstill need to learn the fundamentals. To do it well, you need tohave that foundation. If you don’t see it big, then seeing itsmall won’t have any relevance. Looking at the screen doesn’tgive you all the perspective you need.”

Knifeless SurgeryThe partnership between cardiac surgery and interventional

cardiology is helping develop new percutaneous proceduresthat are replacing procedures customarily done through open-heart surgery.

“We’ve revolutionized how we treat patients,” says Reicher.“A lot of ‘first-in-humans’ stuff is going on now.”

School of Medicine researchers also are testing the devel-opment of a replacement mitral valve that doesn’t requireopen-heart surgery. Composed of plastic or engineered tissue,the replacement valve is folded until it is a diameter smallerthan a pencil. Using fluoroscopy, the interventional cardiolo-gist guides the valve into the heart through a catheter threadedin a leg vein. Once in place, the valve is “deployed in a waythat the natural valve is pushed aside and the new one fitssnugly in its place,” says Poston.

Human trials with percutaneousmitral valve repair may begin in the nearfuture, according to Reicher. Althoughthe replacement valves are probably notas durable as conventional valves in usetoday, the fact that they are less traumaticto install makes the procedure availablefor a greater number of patients.

Percutaneous heart valve repair is“particularly well suited for patients whoare too sick for traditional open-heartsurgery, or who are unable to go onto aheart-lung machine because of hardeningof the arteries or advanced age,” explainsPoston.

Another innovative University of Maryland project is testinga miniaturized pump that can be installed percutaneously incases of heart failure. About 2.5 inches long and also no thickerthan a pencil, the high-performance pump—known as a ven-tricular assist device—helps push blood through the circulatorysystem, taking some of the load off of the heart and giving it abetter chance of healing. In many cases, the rest is enough toavoid risky heart transplantation.

Researchers were contracted to help design a percutaneousventricular assist device intended for use in children, but“there’s enough flow in this pump that it could be used onadults,” says Poston.

Early tests with the ventricular assist device show greatpromise, says Poston, who predicts that doctors will use theminimally invasive pumps in earlier stages of heart failure.

The experience gained by University of Maryland cardiacsurgeons and interventional cardiologists serves in turn to

attract companies and laboratories interested in developing orimproving their products.

“Having very sophisticated fluoroscopic imaging technologyin the operating room puts us in a fast-forward position toattract manufacturers,” says Poston. “Our surgeons are at theleading edge of receiving this technology. The fact that wehave been selected by the forward-looking companies thatdevelop this technology is a credit to the surgeons.”

School of Medicine health professionals are not only devel-oping and testing new technology, but also bringing innova-tion from the laboratory to the patient’s bedside. Techniquesthat seem like science fiction today will soon become routinein clinical practice.

“We see a day when percutaneous valve replacement willbe part of what we do routinely,” says Poston.

Robotic SurgeryPoston and his colleagues moved from science fiction to

operating-room reality last September with the acquisition byUMMC of a surgical robot. The first robot-assisted bypasssurgery was performed at UMMC on Sept. 27, 2006. The da Vinci surgical robot takes minimally invasive surgery to alevel of precision that is literally beyond human capabilities.

While the surgeon operates controls at a console, a computerfilters out hand tremor and “scales down” the movement, sothat a large motion of the fingers is translated to a smallmotion of the instruments while they are inside the patient.All of the motions of the surgeon’s hands and fingers are executed on a small scale.

Made by Intuitive Surgical, the $1.3 million da Vinci sur-gical robot was approved in 2000 by the U.S. Food and DrugAdministration for minimally invasive surgery. Robotic surgical techniques are being developed for general surgery,gynecologic surgery, urologic surgery, and cardiac surgery.

The da Vinci surgical robot ushers in a new era ofimprovement in surgical techniques—even smaller incisionswith even less risk—for cardiac surgery patients. Throughtheir focus on minimally invasive surgery and emerging tech-nologies, Poston and his colleagues will keep improving thesafety and comfort of heart patients like Thomas Tantulo. c

Top: Prior to surgery, the surgical team positions the arms of the surgical robot over the patient.

Bottom: The da Vinci S Surgical System on display without the plasticsurgical drapes shown above. The robot can be used for both cardiacand prostate cancer procedures.

The hybrid procedure results in “less morbidity,less pain, less recovery time, less blood loss, andshorter intensive care unit stays,” says Reicher.


N EW DE A N E . A L B E R T R E EC E , M D, P H D, M B A S C HO OL OF M E DIC I N E

10 U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A R Y L A N D, B A L T I M O R E PHOTOGRAPH BY STEPHEN SPARTANA BUTTON ILLUSTRATION BY EMERY PAJER

E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, has been appointed vice

president for medical affairs at the University of Maryland and

the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and

dean of the School of Medicine. He was previously vice chancellor

of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and dean of

the university’s College of Medicine. An expert on the mechanism

of diabetes-induced birth defects, Reece pioneered the discovery

of the dominant biochemical and molecular mechanisms under-

lying the causes of these birth defects, as well as methods to

prevent these anomalies. The new dean recently shared his

thoughts with Maryland magazine.

grow at its current pace. This is a very austere time in regard toNIH funding, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t continue togrow. It requires some creative initiatives to continue on ourcurrent path. I would also like to see our clinical areas becomestronger and will be looking for opportunities to create magnetprograms and centers of clinical excellence.

How does having an MBA impact your management style?It influences my approach to management by making memuch more analytic when evaluating new or existing ventures.I do more business and market analysis, return on investment,and business plans to confirm my intuition and to give megreater confidence in initiating and/or staying with projects.

How do you stay connected to faculty, staff, and students?I believe in various communications strategies, including anewsletter that features a dean’s message. I encourage faculty,staff, and students to submit information about their academicand clinical life. I have an open-door policy, and to the extentpossible, I try to make time to meet with any faculty, staffmember, or student who wants to see me. My leadership styleis characterized by fostering the collegial atmosphere that is thehallmark of successful academic institutions. I set ambitious yetrealistic goals, and motivate and encourage faculty to work collaboratively to achieve those goals. c

What attracted you to the University of Maryland School of Medicine?The School of Medicine has demonstrated animpressive growth profile in its mission areas, especially

research. I recognized there was scope, not only to furtherpropel the research and academic progress, but also to signifi-cantly enhance the clinical enterprise.

How has your background prepared you for the position?My formal education is in medicine, research, and business. I have had extensive experience in both urban and suburbanenvironments in administration, clinical care, research, andmedical education. In addition, I have maintained a personalcurrency in those key areas, which has allowed me to stay intouch with people’s attitudes. I’m also involved in manynational organizations that help to shape the nation’s healthand science policy, including the National Institutes of Health(NIH), the Institute of Medicine, the Association of AmericanMedical Colleges, and other national organizations such as theMarch of Dimes and the Veterans Administration.

What is one of the first issues you will tackle as dean?One of my first goals is to work with medical school leadershipto consolidate a vision plan and communicate it across theSchool of Medicine. This involves creating strategies andinvestments to ensure that our research enterprise continues to

School of Medicine Enters the “Reece” Era

QA&

3 0 t h D E A N F O C U S E S O N B O O S T I N G R E S E A R C H A N D B U I L D I N G A C A D E M I C A N D C L I N I C A L E N T E R P R I S E

In November 2005, a nitration unit at a chemical factoryin Jilin, China, exploded. The blast killed six people andinjured dozens of others.

In the wake of the explosion, an 80-kilometer-long toxicslick of benzene—a chemical that has been linked withleukemia—formed on the Songhua River. The slick moveddown the river, running past the regional capital of Harbin andits three million residents. Poor communication, inadequatecontainment efforts, and a four-day shutoff of the water supply—initially with no explanation—led to panic and mass evacua-tion. As the benzene wound its way along the river toward theRussian border, China found itself facing a major internationalincident.

Into this highly charged environment stepped Robert Percival,JD, MA, director of the University of Maryland School ofLaw’s Environmental Law Program (ELP).

Percival joined forces with Miranda Schreurs, PhD, an affil-iate associate professor at the law school and associate professorin the Department of Government and Politics at the Universityof Maryland, College Park. Percival and Schreurs made anemergency presentation to a task force reporting to Chineseofficials that helped to convince China’s government to establishits own national reporting requirements for chemical spills andspend more than $1 billion to decontaminate the Songhua River.

Percival and Schreurs co-teach a multidisciplinary seminaron comparative environmental law and politics with studentsparticipating simultaneously in Baltimore and College Park

through videoconference—an innovationthat won them the 2005 Board of Regents

Faculty Award in the Collaboration inTeaching category.

The episode illustrates the vital role that environmental lawexperts can play in addressing increased threats to the environ-ment and public health that accompany unprecedented indus-trial and urban growth throughout the world.

National Experts at the HelmEstablished in 1987, the Environmental Law Program was

among the first programs for environmental law education inthe United States. It is also among the most heralded—theELP is consistently named as a top program in U.S.News andWorld Report’s annual graduate school rankings. It placed fourthin the most recent edition.

Today, virtually all major U.S. law schools have environ-mental law programs, but a global worldview and a spirit ofinventiveness have helped to keep the School of Law’s programat the forefront.

No doubt, it is Percival’s own reputation as an internation-ally recognized scholar in environmental law that also has madethe program so well respected. He came to the School of Lawin 1987 and has been with the ELP since its inception. He isalso a Fulbright scholar and visiting professor at Harvard LawSchool, Georgetown University Law Center, and numerousother outstanding universities worldwide.

Left: Students withthe MarylandEnvironmental LawSociety participate in beach cleanup ofthe Chesapeake Bay.

The great blueheron hunts in pro-tected coves in theChesapeake Bay.

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TAKING ENVIRONMENTAL LAW TO THE LIMIT

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In addition, Percival authored the country’s most widelyused casebook in environmental law, Environmental Regulation:Law, Science & Policy, now in its fifth edition. As the NaturalResources Law Institute Distinguished Visitor at Lewis & ClarkCollege School of Law and a visiting professor of law at theUniversity of Chile, Percival helped establish South America’sfirst environmental law clinic.

Location is KeyPercival notes that the University’s Baltimore location—

only a short drive from the nation’s capital, and close to theChesapeake Bay—has contributed to the program’s success. Theprogram’s leaders and students learned early on to balance envi-ronmental interests with a strong understanding of the waynational policy is developed.

“We have done a great job of taking advantage of our prox-imity to Washington, D.C., as well as to the Chesapeake Bay,”says Percival. “Our location enables us to give students hands-on experience working on environmental policy issues at thelocal, state, and national levels.”

This viewpoint has kept the School in tune with the insti-tutions that help drive policy in the U.S. Recently, the Schoolof Law hosted an American Bar Association national conferenceon the environment that brought together prominent professors,attorneys, industry leaders, and others involved in environmentalissues, including Bruce Babbitt, former secretary of the U.S.Department of the Interior.

The purpose of the conference—to discuss how creators ofenvironmental law and policy use science to better understandthe relationship between ecosystems and infrastructure—took apage right out of the new book, Rescuing Science From Politics:Regulation and the Distortion of Scientific Research, co-edited byRena Steinzor, JD, the Jacob A. France Research Professor of

Law and director of the ELP’s Environmental Law Clinic. Thebook debuts chapters from leading academics in law, science,and philosophy, and forcefully argues the importance of inde-pendent scientific research, free from the influence of politics.

Steinzor is a pioneer in environmental law who founded andcontinues to be a member scholar of the Center for ProgressiveReform—a virtual think tank composed of national scholarsaiming to preserve the life and health of human beings and thenatural environment.

As a partner at Spiegel & McDiarmid, a Washington, D.C.,law firm specializing in the representation of state and local gov-ernment entities in the energy and environmental areas, Steinzorwas in charge of the firm’s environmental practice. Prior to that,she was counsel to the congressional subcommittee that consid-ered the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of1986 and the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act of 1986.

Nurturing Environmental Leaders and AdvocatesStudents of environmental law need to be keenly aware of

the world of science, how environmental legislation and policiesare created, and how to work with the public. Through theEnvironmental Law Clinic, students work on actual lawsuitsand learn skills such as negotiating with legislators and regulators,and methods of gathering and publicizing environmental datafrom scientists, and teaching citizens groups to be more effective.

“The clinic is far more intensive than others offered in thecountry. Our students have argued before the District ofColumbia Court of Appeals, as well as the U.S. Court ofAppeals for the Fourth Circuit, which is one step below theU.S. Supreme Court,” Steinzor says. “They have helped draftlegislation and prepared reports on environmental cases here inthe state of Maryland, as well as represented citizens from thecity of Baltimore.”

In addition to the Environmental Law Clinic, the ELP hasdeveloped the University’s innovative Interdisciplinary Programin Environmental Law and Science. The program fosters anunderstanding of environmental law that is grounded in a firmknowledge of the underlying science. As part of the program,Steinzor and Katherine Squibb, PhD, head of the Division ofEnvironmental Epidemiology and Toxicology in the Departmentof Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine in the School ofMedicine, teach courses in regulatory risk assessment and critical issues in environmental law and science.

In another innovation, the Maryland Environmental LawSociety (MELS), the student society of the ELP, has raisedfunds to participate in the Environmental Protection Agency’sannual auction of emissions rights for the past 12 years. Thestudents buy the rights to as many tons of pollution emissionsas they can afford, and then “retire” them from the system,blocking industry’s access. MELS was the first student group totake this action, and many others have followed its lead.

The law school has been highly effective in placing its alumniin key positions in the burgeoning environmental law field,both as advisers to corporations and in policymaking posts instate and federal government. Alumni have recruited fellowgraduates for jobs too—a key reason that ELP students have a97 percent employment rate nine months after graduating,according to U.S.News & World Report.

All of this has helped position the School and its alumni toparticipate in national discussions on the environment. Increasingly,those discussions are becoming international as well.

Green Gone GlobalPercival says environmental law has changed significantly

since most of the federal laws were adopted in the 1970s. “What’s driving the field now is the growing level of interest

in the international arena,” he says. “The U.S. has lost some ofthe political leadership on this issue during the current adminis-tration, while other nations are becoming highly focused onenvironmental concerns.”

Percival has been active in communicating with his environ-mental law counterparts in other countries and bringing theirperspectives to the University of Maryland. In March 2005,well before the incident in Jilin, Percival was invited to lectureat law schools in China. During the trip, he met with WangCanfa, China’s top public interest environmental lawyer, andthe two agreed on an agenda for future collaboration.

As a result of their efforts, the University has hosted visitingChinese professors including Renmin University of China’s LiYanfang, PhD, one of China’s top environmental law professors.In November 2005, Percival spoke before the Environmentaland Resources Protection Committee of China’s National

People’s Congress during the International Forum onEnvironmental Legislation and Sustainable Development.

China is a high profile example of a nation trying to cometo grips with its environmental concerns. But Percival pointsout that environmental interest and legislative commitment isstrong in many areas of the world, including Europe and India.

In an effort to facilitate dialogue between nations, theSchool of Law has hosted international symposiums, bringingtogether experts from many parts of the world to share infor-mation and debate issues. In April 2007, as part of ELP’s 20th anniversary celebration, the School will hold a global symposium for leaders of developing environmental law clinics—the action arms of many environmental law programs.

Capturing an Environmental Audience“We want our students to hit the ground running on the

environmental issues of the day,” says Percival. “To be an effec-tive leader in this field, it isn’t enough to have the law on yourside. You also have to be able to reach into, and influence, public opinion. It is critical that we help students address thechallenge of translating complex environmental issues intounderstandable language.”

To that end, ELP has created a unique program in whichstudents make documentary films about environmental issues.Some are whimsical, such as “Lead Muppets,” which uses aKeanu Reeves cutout and sound-alike to present the problem of lead poisoning in Baltimore’s inner city. Other films are moresober, including “Perchlorate,” a piece that examines chemicalcontamination from Maryland’s military testing sites.

Percival says effective, creative communication can be asvaluable a tool in addressing environmental law issues asstatutes and briefs, especially in today’s political climate. “Therehas been a puzzling backlash against environmentalism, withsome policymakers being actively hostile toward environmentalconcerns,” he says.

Percival attributes the backlash in part to the rapid develop-ment of environmental science and its examination of suchbroad issues as global warming—issues that can be difficult tounderstand on a local or personal level. The result is a gridlockin environmental debates—and outdated laws. If tomorrow’senvironmental lawyers want to do better, they must facilitatemore effective communication among property owners, busi-nesses, and citizens.

“We must rebuild consensus around key environmentalissues,” says Percival.

With its reputation for success and track record of globalleadership, the ELP is well positioned to help organize that consensus, making the law school a powerful ally for the envi-ronment—and the people who live in it. c

“We want our students to hit the ground running on theenvironmental issues of the day,” says Percival.

School of Law Professor Robert Percival (second from left) co-chaired the October 2006 workshop on clean energy and climate change hosted by Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Also pictured (left to right) are workshop co-chair WangCanfa, Gearold Knowles of Schiff Hardin LLP, and Sharon Mascher of The University of Western Australia.

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Twenty-two-year-old Aaron Merki isa man of faith.

“If you had talked to me eightmonths ago, I would have told you

exactly where I would be five years fromnow,” he says. “But I’m letting myself rollalong now, letting myself consider a lot of different options. Law school haschanged me. For the first time in mylife, I don’t have everything planned out. I’m just keeping an open mind.”

An open mind might be what led Merki to the Universityof Maryland School of Law. During his senior year at MauriceJ. McDonough High School in Charles County, Md., he wasselected by Gov. Parris Glendening to serve as the 2000-01State Board of Education student member.

“That’s probably the most significant experience I’ve had sofar. Without it my life would have been very different.” It wasthrough his work on the board that he met the man he calls hismentor: Walter Sondheim Jr., one of Baltimore’s greatest civicleaders and public servants. “He led the desegregation ofBaltimore’s public schools after Brown v. Board of Educationwas handed down, and he helped with the revitalization ofdowntown Baltimore. We stay in touch and see each otheroften,” he says.

Following high school, that connection helped Merki win ascholarship to pursue undergraduate studies in Sondheim’sname at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County(UMBC). “My public policy work as an undergraduate set meup to come to this law school,” he says.

Merki also got a taste of what a lawyer’s life is like, evenbefore his first class. As a junior at UMBC, he worked in theAppellate Division of the Maryland Office of the PublicDefender. He wrote a brief that was accepted by the Maryland

Court of Appeals in a case that resulted in the release of a manfrom serving several additional years in prison.

He describes the case as “an example of a rural county trialcourt judge who was completely unsympathetic to the defen-dant—misconstruing a statute to try and lock him up for anextra five years, I’m proud of this. I hadn’t had a day of lawschool, and I wrote 95 percent of it,” Merki says.

Merki chose the University of Maryland because of thefriendly people and atmosphere. “I’m learning practical skills. A law degree is extremely useful, whether or not I’m going topractice law for the rest of my life.”

Unlike many of his colleagues, Merki is confident that timespent away from the library is time well spent. “I don’t let lawschool interfere with my social life. I take many weekends offand go out with friends. I have two little godkids who livenearby, and I see them often. My family is close enough for meto go home and visit.”

As the son of a minister, Merki calls his childhood “an edu-cation in compassion and respect for all people.” He says thathis faith and his belief that all people are equal—regardless ofany differences—are what propel him toward a career in equalityand social justice.

“Law school is just a small part of a broader means to dobig things. I try to put the interests of others before my own,”says Merki. c

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Serving Others With Respect and Justice

T he delivery of health care to patients has changeddramatically in the last 30 years—and nurses arein the national vanguard of providing improve-ments and innovations in patient care at all levels.

As health care delivery becomes more high-tech and complex, and as the scope of nursing responsibilitiesincreases, so too has the need for nurses to possess moreadvanced training. To meet this need, and to ease a widespreadnursing shortage, the American Association of Colleges ofNursing has created new practice roles to meet the growingneed for nurses in the health care system.

One new role is that of Clinical Nurse Leader (CNL). TheCNL is an entry-level nurse educated at the master’s degreelevel to provide quality care at the bedside. As members ofthe interdisciplinary health care team, they will oversee thecare coordination of a group of patients in a particular settingsuch as a hospital, community-based health center, or school.These nurses will work alongside other nurses and members

of the health care team to improve the quality and efficiencyof patient care.

“They collect and evaluate patient outcomes, put evidence-based practice into action, and facilitate patient care across awide variety of settings,” says Carol Esche, DNP, RN, MA,CNA, assistant professor in the School of Nursing and co-director of the School’s new CNL program.

Gail Schoen Lemaire, PhD, APRN/PMH, BC, assistantprofessor in the School and co-director of the program, adds:“They can adjust care plans when appropriate to improvepatient care and will facilitate communication between thepatient, family, and members of the health care team.”

At the School of Nursing, the Clinical Nurse Leader program is designed as a second-degree program for students holding a bachelor’s degree in a field other than nursing.Ninety-six nursing schools around the country are also pilotingthe program, but the University’s nursing school is the only onein Maryland to offer a degree in the new nursing role.

Students work with faculty to develop their basic nursing skills.

Putting Patients First:

New Program Educates Next Generation of NursesB Y D A N I E L L E S W E E N E Y


eligible to sit for the RN licensing examination to become regis-tered nurses. CNL graduates also will be eligible to sit for theCNL certification examination. “It is expected that more hospitalswill incorporate the CNL graduate into their organization andthat opportunities for graduates will continue to grow,” saysEsche.

“I’m interested in seeing the Clinical Nurse Leader roleevolve,” adds Matthews, who anticipates working in medical-surgical nursing. “I think we will need to get some additionalpractice in nursing before we can be leaders in the field, andthat’s how it should be,” he says.

Other CNL students plan to leverage their training as a wayto gain nursing and leadership experience en route to anadvanced-practice nursing degree.

“I am not certain what kind of role I will have as a CNL,”says Gurung, “but I will definitely be back to school for thePediatric Nurse Practitioner program.”

Rodl also has decided to become an advanced practicenurse—eventually. “My CNL obstetrical clinical rotation waswonderful. I want to be a nurse midwife,” she says. “What Iwill probably do now is work full time in obstetric nursing andgo to school part time.”

The role of clinical nurse leader is an exciting one, say Escheand Lemaire, and one that is still evolving. CNLs will have apositive impact on patient care, and on the profession. And inthe near future, clinical nurse leaders will be fully integratedinto the health care system.

The School of Nursing continues to develop innovative educational pathways, such as the Clinical Nurse Leader pro-gram, in order to improve patient care and address importantwork force issues in the nursing field. c

“Our Clinical Nurse Leader graduate program is unique inthat applicants enter the program with degrees in non-nursingfields and obtain a generalist education at the master’s degreelevel,” says Janet D. Allan, PhD, RN, CS, FAAN, dean of theSchool of Nursing. “This program represents an opportunityfor women and men to obtain an advanced degree and movedirectly into patient care—and ultimately patient care leader-ship roles,” adds Allan.

Lemaire and Esche say that because the role is so new, itsscope is sometimes misunderstood. On the one hand, the CNLprogram is entry level. “We start with the basics—taking vitalsigns, for instance,” says Esche. However, after completing theprogram, CNL students graduate as advanced generalists with amaster’s degree. “CNL graduates have advanced education incommunication, assessment, case management, and evidence-based practice,” Esche adds.

The leadership role of a CNL differs from that of othernurses. “CNLs apply evidence to practice in their identifiedclinical area and will integrate case management into their practice. Their practice and leadership focuses on patients andtheir care,” says Lemaire.

Students come to the School’s CNL program from finance,business, education, science, technology, and other backgrounds.“The nursing profession will benefit from the problem-solvingand critical-thinking skills they bring,” Lemaire says. “Weutilize the strengths of their individual experience.”

Eva Rodl, a member of the first CNL class that graduatedlast December, came to the program with an undergraduatedegree in psychology. Rodl liked the field—and even participated in several psychology research projects—but foundthat research did not offer her the daily reward she was seeking.

“In psychology, you could spend years doing research andmaybe have a paper published. I wanted an accomplishment

that I could put my hands on, so to speak. Nursing is practical.You get rewarded and have some success with your patientsevery day,” Rodl says.

William “Rusty” Matthews, V, is a member of the secondCNL class and is slated to graduate in May 2007. Like Rodl, heentered the program with an undergraduate psychology degree.However, Matthews spent the previous three years working as apsychiatric technician at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital inTowson, Md. His duties in the Adult Inpatient PsychoticDisorders Unit included running group therapy sessions, completing documentation, and managing patient behavior.

“My original career plan was to become a clinical psycholo-gist,” he says, “but at Sheppard Pratt, I worked under the nurses.They have so much more contact with patients, and it makessuch a difference. Nurses are on the front lines 24-7, and thepsychologists and psychiatrists see the patients for, maybe, 40minutes at a time,” he says. “I decided I’d rather be in nursing.”

Arati Gurung, who graduated from the program lastDecember, has a bachelor’s degree in computer science andengineering. She worked briefly in information technology butdidn’t like the field enough to stay in it. Instead, she decided topursue her longtime interest in health science. “My careerchange is a big switch, but I am thoroughly enjoying my nursing experience so far,” she says.

The 64-credit CNL program includes essential clinical rota-tions (including adult health, pediatrics, mental health, obstetrics,and community health) and didactic coursework, along with afinal clinical immersion experience of approximately 300 hours.The University of Maryland Medical Center is the clinical partner for the School’s CNL pilot program, providing trainingopportunities and a plan to integrate the CNL graduates intoits system of care.

After graduating from the CNL program, graduates are

New ProgramOffers Nurses aPractice-FocusedDoctorate

A clinically based or “practice” doctorate has been astandard credential among health care providersfor years. Physicians earn the MD. Pharmacistsearn the PharmD. Physical therapists earn the

DPT, and dentists earn the DDS.Until recently, nurses who wanted doctorates in nursing

could choose the PhD or a similar Doctor of NursingScience (DNSc) option. The PhD and DNSc were ideal fornurses who wanted to conduct research, but nurses whosought a practice-oriented doctorate faced an academic void,because, for nurses at least, no such degree existed.

Last fall, however, the University of Maryland School ofNursing inaugurated its Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)program, the only such program in Maryland. The DNP isa new non-research, practice doctorate designed and sup-ported by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.It is a doctorate for nurses who do not wish to be researchers,but who want to advance the practice of nursing and alsohave the option of teaching.

“By nursing ‘practice,’ we mean practice broadlydefined—either clinically focused, or in nursing administra-tion, or as a nurse educator or nurse informatician,” saysPatricia Gonce Morton, PhD, RN, ACNP, FAAN, interimassociate dean for master’s studies and director of the DNPprogram. The School’s DNP program is one of 22 such programs in the U.S., but it is the first in Maryland.

“The DNP is a unique opportunity for nurses,” Mortonsays. “We’ve had many program applicants say, ‘I’ve waitedfor this for a long time. This is what I dreamed nursingwould one day offer.’”

The DNP will not only raise the academic bar for senior-level nurses, it will also help decrease the shortage ofnursing faculty. “The DNP responds to the current andfuture needs of the American health care system and to theeducational demands of nurse educators, nurse administra-tors, nurse informaticians, and advanced practice nurses,”says School of Nursing Dean Janet D. Allan, PhD, RN, CS, FAAN.

DNP candidates range in age from their late 20s to 60years old, and all have at least a master’s degree in nursing,

“Nursing is practical. You

get rewarded and have some

success with your patients

every day,” Rodl says.

Faculty teach students in the CNL program how to provide qualitycare at the bedside.

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J eene and Felecia Bailey sit side by side at night doing theirhomework, under the watchful eyes of three school-age children immersed in studies of their own. The parents oftwo sons, ages 12 and 7, and a 5-year-old daughter, the

Baileys have nearly completed their graduate program require-ments for the master’s degree from the University of MarylandSchool of Nursing.

How do parents who work full time and raise an active triomanage the added responsibility of graduate school? The Baileysare the first to admit it is a juggling act of sorts, but one thathas worked quite effectively for them. Creative scheduling, supportive employers, the helping hands of their own kids, and sticking to a routine make it possible, they say.

“I do think initially it was kind of overwhelming,” Feleciaadmits, “making sure the kids are where they need to be. It’s awhole lot smoother once we get everybody’s schedules together.I’m a real planner.”

Both Jeene and Felecia are working toward the Master ofScience in Community/Public Health Nursing. The Baileysbelieve that an advanced degree would help them achieve moreautonomy on the job, more of a voice in the decision-making

process, better access to managerial posts, andgreater opportunities within community-basednursing—and possibly medical research.

The couple chose the University ofMaryland School of Nursing program becausethe flexible classroom hours better fit theirhectic family schedule. Felecia also liked thetraditional classroom setting as compared toan online option.

“I need structure,” Felecia says. “Thelibrary is right there. Its technology is up todate. Personnel are always available to directme, and the faculty members are really con-cerned about my education and my success.”

Jeene acknowledges that the two workingnurses couldn’t have pursued their dreamwithout supportive employers who remainedflexible about their changing schedules. TheBaileys are both active-duty nurse officers ofthe U.S. Public Health Service at the National

Institutes of Health. Their work has taken them onto militaryposts and into state prison systems in Virginia and Maryland,and both were working full time when they entered theSchool of Nursing program in 2002.

In addition to sharing a profession, the Baileys also share asimilar background. They grew up, met, and married in NorthCarolina. Felecia is a native of Southern Pines, and Jeene grewup in Columbia near the state’s Outer Banks. Their paths firstcrossed in 1998 during their senior year as nursing students atNorth Carolina Central University, and they married threeyears later. The Baileys long-term plan is to return to the statewhere their passions for health care were first inspired.

Felecia describes a trip she made as a child to a hospital tovisit a mother and her newborn. “When the nurse brought thebaby in, a light bulb went off: ‘That’s what I want to do,’”recalls Felecia.

Meanwhile Jeene saw his sister, also a nurse, bombardedwith questions from friends and relatives about an assortmentof health concerns. Many people in the rural community hadto drive 15 miles to see a physician or nurse for routine care.

“They were just so grateful. I loved it,” he recalls. “Now Iwant to do something where I can help people and really makea difference.”

Jeene and Felecia acknowledge that there have been sacri-fices along the way. But the reward, they say, is that the Baileyfamily has learned to adapt to change and that when all is saidand done, it will have been for a greater purpose.

“We have to improve things—not just for ourselves—butfor others as well,” says Felecia. c

Couple Juggles Graduate NursingProgram With Family LifeB Y G W E N N E W M A N

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says Morton. They come from various backgrounds—nurse practitioners, educators, administrators, clinicians—and arealready far along in their careers. “They don’t need to earn thisdegree to advance,” Morton adds. “But they want it, so that theycan contribute more to the profession and improve patient care.”

DNP students customize the 38-credit (at minimum) program with the help of a faculty advisor, according to theircareer interests. The doctorate culminates not in a dissertation,but in a capstone project in which students translate an area ofresearch into practice.

“For example, a student might be evaluating models of care,or analyzing patient outcomes from protocols,” says Morton.“We want students to graduate as experts in evidence-basedpractice and to bring research findings to their practice setting.”

The first DNP class is impressive, Morton notes. “The students have exciting ideas. One wants to establish a nurse-managed clinic. Another wants to explore creative modalities innursing education and try to make the process more learner-centered,” she says. DNP candidate Dionne Mebane Raley,MSN, RN, AE-C, CRNP, a pediatric nurse practitioner andassistant professor at the Helene Fuld School of Nursing atCoppin State University in Baltimore, says her reason for earning the doctorate is multifaceted.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for clinician-scholars to

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earn a terminal degree focused on advancing their clinical skills,and learning to dissect, translate, and implement research—rather than perform it,” Raley says.

Raley, who also works as a pediatric nurse practitioner at afamily practice in Baltimore, is especially interested in pediatricasthma and adolescent gynecology in inner-city populations.Her long-term goal is to direct a pediatric nurse practitionerclinical program while continuing to practice pediatric primarycare. “A DNP will aid me in achieving these goals by combin-ing advanced assessment and management skills with the theoretical, analytical, and business skills necessary to be a clinician-scholar,” Raley adds.

Matthew D’Angelo, MS, CRNA, a nurse anesthetist at theR Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, is also enrolled in theDNP program. D’Angelo knew for a long time that he wantedto earn a doctorate. “Over the years, I have been accepted intoseveral PhD programs—including one in pharmacology andanother in neuroscience—but I did not complete them becausethey ultimately didn’t give me the clinical practice focus I wanted,” D’Angelo says.

“The DNP is different. It’s a practice doctorate—not benchscience. It’s a way to work clinically, teach clinically, and conductclinical research.” D’Angelo, who also is assistant director of theSchool’s nurse anesthesia master’s program, is earning his doctor-

ate full time. “I would like to finish assoon as possible,” he says.

But most DNP candidates, Mortonnotes, work at a full-time job and attendthe program part time. “It will take mostof them four or five years to completethe degree,” she says. After graduation,about half of the DNP candidates planto combine teaching with practice, andthe others will probably teach, saysMorton. “After coming out of our pro-gram, they will be able to obtain facultypositions anywhere.”

To facilitate the DNP program’s success, the Maryland Health ServicesCost Review Commission—the organi-zation that sets the rates Maryland hospi-tals charge—awarded the School ofNursing a five-year, $1,020,000 grant tosupport the DNP program, includingfunds to hire faculty for the program. “The state initiative is unprecedented; we hope it will serve as a nationalmodel,” says Allan.

The DNP has been a long-awaiteddegree option for nurses, Morton says.“We need nurses with a higher knowl-edge base to take us—the nursing profession—to the next level. I believethat our graduates will be leaders in helping solve the complicated issues facing health care today.” c

Matthew D’Angelo, nurse anesthetist at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, is earning his DNP.

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Improving Access to Mental Health Care for African-American YouthsB Y S O N I A E L A B D

An internationally renowned scholar and leader in the area of children’s services research and programs, Richard(Rick) P. Barth, PhD, MSW, is the seventh dean of theSchool of Social Work. Barth has authored more than

150 peer-reviewed research papers, written 11 books, andpresented expert testimony before the U.S. House ofRepresentatives—on adoption, child welfare, and substanceabuse—that has helped to create new laws and improve current ones.

Twice a Fulbright scholar, Barth has been honored withnumerous awards, including the James E. Flynn Prize forResearch from the University of Southern California, and theNational Association of Social Worker’s Presidential Award forExcellence in Research.

“I am both proud and thrilled to have been appointed deanof this School, one of the finest schools of social work in thecountry,” says Barth.

Since July, when he arrived in Baltimore from theUniversity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC), where hewas the Frank A. Daniels Professor for Human Services PolicyInformation, Barth has been meeting with faculty, students,and staff to discuss the future of the School and to let themknow that one of his top priorities will be to raise and allocatefunds to “support faculty who want to try different approachesand do some demonstration projects,” he says.

“One of the opportunities—and responsibilities—of beingin Baltimore is that we can make a real difference in real livesright here.”

By all accounts, the 54-year-old Barth is brilliant, disciplined,and action oriented. A leader in evidence-based research, Barthwas co-principal investigator for the National Study of Childand Adolescent Well-Being, the first-ever examination of thecountry’s child welfare system that used a nationally representa-tive sample.

He also created a program in California called SharedFamily Care, designed to bridge the gap between providingservices to parents at home and providing services to their chil-dren by placing both generations in foster care together. Thefoster parents offer stability and teach mothers how to parenttheir children while everyone is under the same roof.

“Social workers understand that the only way the worldchanges is if each of us examines the evidence and our con-sciences to see what changes are needed, and then take thelead,” he says. Though he is just beginning the Maryland chapter of his professional life, Barth already has built a legacyin the scores of students he mentored during 16 years at hisalma mater, the University of California, Berkeley, and eightyears at UNC.

“He not only taught us how to do research, but Rick alsosocialized us into academia by taking us to conferences, intro-ducing us to his colleagues, having extremely high expectationsof us and then challenging and supporting us,” says DevonBrooks, associate dean for Faculty Affairs and Development atthe University of Southern California’s School of Social Work.

“I’m always trying to meet the ‘Rick Barth Standard,’ in myown work and with my students. Not that it weighs heavily onme. Rather, it’s something I aspire to because he is a great mentor,with a deep commitment to social work education andresearch.” c

Child Services Expert Becomes New Dean of School of Social WorkB Y C H R I S T I N A C H E A K A L O S

“One of the opportunities—and

responsibilities—of being in Baltimore

is that we can make a real difference

in real lives right here.”

A ccording to the U.S. Surgeon General, 10 percent of children and adolescents sufferfrom mental illness. Yet, only one in five of those children receives the mental healthservices they need. Even fewer African-American children obtain mental health care,even though they are disproportionately exposed to violence, drugs, and alcohol,

according to a 2003 report by the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health.Those risk factors place them at a higher risk of developing mental health problems.

School of Social Work Assistant Professor Michael Lindsey, PhD, MSW, MPH, knows first-hand about growing up in a difficult and dangerous environment. Raised in a drug-infested andviolent neighborhood in southeast Washington, D.C., he is familiar with the struggles faced byAfrican-American adolescents.

“I once saw a man die in front of my house,” he says. “I know people who sold drugs andcarried guns every day. I’ve seen people just struggling to survive and overcome their circumstances.”

To learn how to improve mental health care access for African-American children, Lindseyhas been studying why such access is so poor. He has examined factors that affect the well-beingof the children’s caregivers, such as the caregiver’s mental health, social support system, substanceabuse history, and satisfaction with the neighborhood.

“Research has shown that lack of transportation and insurance coverage alone do not


Although Tal Shtulman does not consider herself reli-gious, the 23-year-old dual-degree student does see herself as spiritual—and driven. Following the samepath that her father, David Shtulman ’90, took 16 years

ago, the May 2005 Penn State graduate is pursuing both amaster’s degree in social work from the University of Marylandand a master’s degree in Jewish communal service from theDarrell D. Friedman Institute for Professional Development atthe Baltimore Hebrew University.

“My father always came home from work excited aboutwhat he did at work every day,” says Shtulman. “He was a biginspiration for me.”

As executive director of the Pittsburgh branch of theAmerican Jewish Committee, David Shtulman focused oninterfaith, interracial, and interethnic programs and campaigns.He recently worked on a project that brought together JudahPearl—the father of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journalreporter who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan fiveyears ago—and a Muslim professor for a dialogue to exploretheir common ground.

“It’s gratifying to see that the two men areclose now and this is a dialogue that they tookall over the world,” says Shtulman, who likeher father, sees herself working on a macrolevel to change just a small piece of the world.“The whole experience of seeing him bring thetwo men together before an audience to discussthe current differences between Muslims andJews is inspiring.”

The first legacy student in the dual-degreeprogram at the School of Social Work and theFriedman Institute, Shtulman chose Maryland’sprogram because it offered a better fit for herthan eight similar national programs. “I feltthat this one was the most organized,” she says,calling the interaction between the School ofSocial Work and the Friedman Institute“seamless.” She adds, “Baltimore itself—withits ethnic mix—appealed to me.”

During her first year in the program in2005-2006, she earned a 4.0 GPA and received a merit-basedaward for $5,000 from the Rosa J. Kolker Scholarship forExcellence from the Friedman Institute. “I am very happy withmy decision to attend the School; my classes offer informationand learning I know that I will actually use in my career,” saysShtulman.

She began an early second-year internship last summer atthe Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center in Reisterstown,Md. “The field placement opportunities have given me invalu-able experience so that I can confidently look ahead to my firstofficial job after graduation,” says Shtulman, who is writinggrants and working for the center’s educational programs.

She describes herself as “especially interested in hate crimes,the offenders of hate crimes, and human civil rights.” As a student at Penn State, she organized an AIDS walk that raisedmore than $18,000.

Her ability as a community organizer comes naturally,passed down not only from her father but also from her mother,Deborah Shtulman, who has a social work degree and is theexecutive director of an adult day care foundation. TalShtulman’s great-grandmother, Mignon Jacobus Levy, was asuffragette who helped win the right for women to vote.

Shtulman decided to pursue a social work career becauseshe would “like to make an impact, to encourage others tohave an open dialogue between the races and between ethnicand religious groups.

“We don’t live in a bubble,” she says. “We must live globallyand look at how our lives and what we do impact others else-where in the world.” c

Bringing a Legacy of Community Service to the School of Social Work

S T U DE N T P R OF I L E TA L S H T U L M A N S C HO OL OF S O C I A L WOR K


utilization, especially among African-American children andyouth, is an understudied area,” says Harrington, who assistedwith data analysis. “We know that many children and adoles-cents do not receive the mental health services they need, butwe know less about why this happens and even less about howto address the issue. His work moves us forward in understand-ing how and why, which will ultimately lead us to developingsuccessful interventions.”

Lindsey says the research shows that social workers mustnot only attend to the needs of their adult clients but also tothe needs of their clients’ children.

“Although it may seem obvious that a social worker shouldbe aware of the children’s needs, social work services are moreoften than not provided in a vacuum of sorts,” says Lindsey.“For instance, if a social worker is helping a single mother withdepression and substance abuse, the social worker may not beattuned to the needs of the woman’s children because the socialworker is so focused on the mother’s needs.” Lindsey says hisresearch also articulates the need for social workers to educateand train caregivers to identify their children’s mental healthproblems themselves.

Lindsey’s research has included study of how adolescentAfrican-American males perceive mental health services andproviders. According to Lindsey, studies show that even whenAfrican-American teens have access to services, they only attendan average of two to three treatment sessions. With fundingfrom the National Institute of Mental Health, Lindsey inter-viewed adolescents who had symptoms of depression. Halfwere in treatment, half were not.

Lindsey says that due to a stigma among African-Americanteens regarding mental illness, the youths he spoke to soughthelp from their social networks before seeing mental healthprofessionals. The teens also felt that service providers mightnot understand the experiences of African-American males, andmight stereotype them. They said training and education arenot enough—mental health professionals must also be willingto share personal experiences or anecdotes during therapy.

Understanding some of the barriers to obtaining mentalhealth care among African-American adolescents can helpsocial workers and mental health care providers better connectwith the youths, Lindsey says.

“This research helps articulate the factors that are likely toimprove access to and engagement in services among a popula-tion that doesn’t traditionally use mental health services,” saysLindsey. He also hopes that his study results eventually helpadapt mental health interventions that target African-Americanyouths to make the interventions more effective.

“Research is more than just proving or disproving theory,”he says. “It’s about the implications of your research and thelives that may be positively impacted from your work.” c


B Y R O S A L I A S C A L I A

explain the disparity in mental health care among African-Americans,” Lindsey says. “There are other factors contributingto poor use of services. Perhaps these children are not gettingaccess to mental health services simply because their caregiversare struggling with their own concerns and cannot recognizethat their children have mental health problems.”

Data for Lindsey’s research came from hundreds of African-American eight-year-old children and their caregivers who werepart of the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect, agroup of research studies coordinated by the University ofNorth Carolina and funded by the U.S. Department of Healthand Human Services’ National Center on Child Abuse andNeglect.

Lindsey found that when the caregivers did not feel supportedsocially and had mental health and substance abuse problems of their own, the children in their care were more likely to haveelevated mental health needs. If the children’s needs are notaddressed, they become probable precursors to more seriousmental health problems. And because of the caregivers’ own dif-ficulties, the children’s needs were often not met.

“Some studies have looked at how only one factor, such assubstance abuse, affects a child, but we were able to look at howmany different factors together affect the child,” Lindsey says.“Now that we have a composite of the caregivers … we canstudy which kids are likely to use mental health services.”

Lindsey worked in collaboration with Donna Harrington,PhD, professor and director of the Ruth H. Young ChildWelfare Center at the School of Social Work, along with otherresearchers throughout the country.

“Dr. Lindsey’s focus on mental health needs and service

Michael Lindsey studies access to mental health services for African-American children.

Lindsey says the research shows that social workersmust not only attend to the needs of their adultclients but also to the needs of their clients’ children.

What would you do if your toddler confused Pine-Sol for lemonade and took a few sips of thecleaning fluid? Where would you turn? Your doc-tor—if someone was in the office to answer yourcall. The emergency room would be the next log-

ical step, but about 80 percent of poison exposures can betreated safely at home. And last year, just under 70,000 peoplein Maryland called the Maryland Poison Center (MPC) in theSchool of Pharmacy for help with possible poison exposures.The MPC saves the state millions of dollars in unnecessaryhealth care costs, but more important, it saves lives.

The MPC and the National Capital Poison Center, inWashington, D.C., are the only poison centers servingMaryland. The MPC began providing around-the-clock poison information and emergency assistance to state residentsand health care professionals in the 1970s. The MPC’s mis-sion—to provide up-to-date information to the general publicand health care professionals about potential poisons—hasnot changed since the center moved from Baltimore CityHospital to the School of Pharmacy in 1972.

What has changed since the MPC began operating from acramped basement office in the old Dunning Hall building isthe scope and volume of services the center provides. Last year,its 10 full-time, nationally certified specialists answered 68,334calls—10 times the volume that a smaller staff handled in theearly ’70s—making the MPC a major public health resourcefor the state.

Topics of phone calls range from intentional drug overdosesto adverse reactions to prescription drugs. And with fully auto-mated phone lines and a sophisticated database system, MPCstaff can identify and research trends in poisonings. Patterns orgroupings of calls, for instance, could lead staff to identify abioterrorism threat.

People around the state are taking note of the center’sexpanded role and what it will take to maintain that role. TheMaryland General Assembly, which is working to identify sus-tainable funding for the MPC, recently ordered a study of its

funding needs. It has been estimated that approximately $1.8million in annual funding is required to support the vital healthservice the MPC provides.

“The Maryland Poison Center is a major public health assetto every citizen in Maryland,” says David A. Knapp, PhD,dean of the School of Pharmacy. “You never know who isgoing to use it—from a toddler who accidentally got intosomething—to a person who has done something intentionally.The MPC is there 24/7.”

Pioneers in Poison ControlWhen the MPC relocated to the School of Pharmacy in

1972, there were five other poison centers scattered in hospitalsthroughout Maryland. By linking the center with the University’smedical and educational resources, the MPC became the firstcenter to provide around-the-clock poison information andemergency assistance. In those days, few poisoning and over-dose references were available, computers were scarce, andInternet resources were nonexistent. The center’s small staff wasaided by pharmacy and medical students who manned thephones on nights and weekends.

But the center flourished, and by 1975, the MPC wasexpanding its community outreach programs. Mr. Yuk, thescowling green face now easily recognized by both children andadults as a warning for poisonous substances, was introducedby the MPC that year. The center also kicked off a statewideawareness campaign and implemented a toll-free phone line.

“With more public awareness came higher call volumes;poison specialists were handling increasingly difficult cases,”says Lisa Booze, PharmD, CSPI, the center’s clinical coordina-tor. Booze, one of four pharmacists hired in 1979, initiallyanswered calls full time, but her role gradually expanded. Now,Booze provides educational services to health professionalsthroughout the state.

The early 1980s ushered in a national push for more specificguidelines for poison centers. Standards were established requir-ing centers to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week; to

24 U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A R Y L A N D, B A L T I M O R E 2007 R E S E A R C H & S C H O L A R S H I P 25ILLUSTRATION BY EMERY PAJER

offer outreach and educational programs; and to staff thephones with health professionals certified as poison informationspecialists by the American Association of Poison ControlCenters (AAPCC). With most of those pieces already in place,the MPC was named a certified Regional Poison Center by theAAPCC in 1985.

Expanding Outreach and EducationToday, the center’s outreach efforts are in full force. Angel

Bivens, RPh, MBA, CSPI, public education coordinator, travelsaround the state teaching the public about poison hazards. Lastyear, the MPC presented 59 educational programs to approxi-mately 2,000 health care professionals and firefighters in 15counties and Baltimore city, says Booze. Many paramedical students and emergency medicine residents from throughoutthe state learn poison management from MPC staff members.

Fourth-year pharmacy students can spend a month at thecenter learning about poison exposures as part of their field-work. The MPC has one of only a handful of remaining toxi-cology fellowships in the country. The two-year fellowship inclinical toxicology trains pharmacists to work as toxicologists inpoison centers and in toxicology services, and as researchers inacademic environments.

“The MPC is a pipeline of people who are trained toxicolo-gists to help provide care for poison patients. The fellowshipfeeds into the pool of future toxicologists,” says Bruce Anderson,PharmD, ABAT, the center’s director of operations. Anderson iscertified by the American Board of Applied Toxicology.

Protecting the PublicThroughout its 35-year history at the School of Pharmacy,

the MPC has been directly involved in national public healthevents. During the oil shortage of the mid 1970s, the centerreceived a large number of calls about people who swallowedgasoline while siphoning gas. The Tylenol tampering scare inthe early 1980s also created a huge spike in calls.

More recently, the center’s medical director, Suzanne Doyon,

MD, FACMT, was called upon by area hospitals to investigate aworrisome cluster of what seemed like heroin overdoses. Sheworked with the state medical examiner to determine that fen-tanyl, a strong narcotic used to treat cancer pain, was being soldon the streets in some Maryland counties as heroin.

These days, the role of the MPC staff as state poison expertsextends to issues of homeland security. With the threat ofanthrax in October 2001, the MPC helped to educateMaryland residents about the agent—what it is, what it lookslike, and what to do in case of an exposure.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the center, in conjunc-tion with the AAPCC, implemented a more sophisticated systemof data collection and analysis, enabling it to identify trendsthat might indicate a bioterrorism release, says Anderson.

“If someone releases anthrax today—if we’re seeing weirdskin reactions or if people get breathing reactions or symptomsthat look like pneumonia—we have monitors that can pick thatup,” explains Anderson. “We can provide another mechanismto help identify possible terrorist releases quickly.”

In keeping with its educational mission, the MPC is alsohelping to educate health care professionals, including pharma-cists, about their role in bioterrorism preparedness with a seriesof lectures and online materials.

MPC’s evolution is an outgrowth of the core service it hasbeen providing since its start, says Anderson. “That service—providing around-the-clock poison information and emergencyassistance—allows us to look at new opportunities and do newthings to meet the needs of the citizens of this state.” c

Number of callsmade per countyin 2005

Maryland Poison Center1-800-222-1222

www.mdpoison.com

B Y R O B Y N F I E S E R

Maryland Poison Center Is Everyone’s Resource


[ 1807 ]

CREATING A VISION FOR THE FUTURE

Two hundred years ago, a group of Baltimore physicians decided to form a school of medicine

based on the rigorous curricula learned at various institutions in Europe.

These visionaries struggled against myriad odds to build the foundation of

what eventually became the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

From its storied and sometimes controversial beginnings,

the School of Medicine has evolved into a campus with seven professional schools

and a graduate school serving the health sciences and human services professions.

It is the founding campus of what has now become the University System of Maryland

with 11 degree-granting institutions and two research institutions.

Bicen

tennialW

hile she was a pharmacy student at the Universityof Kansas, Danielle Chauncey Lavallee explored avariety of career paths. She worked at an ambulatorycare center with the Indian Health Service of the

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, spent timeat a hospital-run diabetes clinic, and worked in a communitypharmacy.

Those choices revealed her passion for working directly withpatients. But while her fellow students were busy deciding ontheir career paths, Lavallee was left with a nagging question:What is the best way to apply data collection and research—an area she was also passionate about—to patient care?

“We can say we’re going to implement something, but ifyou just do it and don’t evaluate something, how do you knowit works?” asks Lavallee.

Her curiosity, and a 2002 conversation with C. DanielMullins, PhD, professor and chair of the Department ofPharmaceutical Health Services Research in the School ofPharmacy, piqued her interest in the University of Maryland.Mullins told Lavallee that the best health service is aimed atimproving clinical practice.

That conversation, Mullins’ “phenomenal energy,” and thequality of the School of Pharmacy faculty brought her toBaltimore in 2003 to pursue her doctorate in what Mullinsdescribes as “innovative research that investigates the unrecog-nized communication gap between health care providers andtheir patients.”

Specifically, Lavallee is examining how a patient’s knowledgeand beliefs about the anticoagulation drug that patient is takingmight affect the treatment outcome.

“The question I’m asking is: If pharmacists have access toinformation about their patients as people, can they controltheir INR [International Normalized Ratio, a standardized testthat measures blood-clotting time] and better educatepatients?” she says.

The idea caught the attention of the federal Agency forHealthcare Research and Quality, which awarded her a post-doctoral traineeship award grant to complete her dissertation.

Lavallee has enlisted 160 patients who are currently takingthe anticoagulation drug Coumadin®, a drug used to preventclotting and strokes, and who are also enrolled in an anticoagu-lation clinic. The patients will be asked about topics not normally associated with anticoagulation clinics, such as theirgeneral health literacy and their thoughts about taking the drug.

Information collected from the control group of 80 patientswill be withheld, while information collected from the inter-vention group of 80 patients will be summarized and given tothe pharmacists who work with those patients.

“It’s not that I expect to improve health literacy, but to rec-ognize it and work around it,” Lavallee says. Lavallee’s hypothesisis that better patient information would help improve the patients’INR scores, meaning the drug would be better managed.

As well as having the potential for wide-reaching benefits,Lavallee’s study has allowed her to explore her passion: applyingdata collection to help patients.

“I’m fascinated by the challenges I see in the health care system and the use of medications,” she says. Although she isunsure whether her dissertation will take her to a career inindustry or academia, Lavallee is confident that her researchwill leave many fields open to her. c

Improving Pharmacy Practice Through ResearchB Y R O B Y N F I E S E R


S T U DE N T P R OF I L E DA N I E L L E C H AU N C EY L AVA L L E E S C HO OL OF P H A R M AC Y



PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF THE SCHOOLS; MEDICAL ALUMNIASSOCIATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, INC.; AND HEALTH SCIENCES AND HUMAN SERVICES LIBRARY ARCHIVES


THE LEGACY OF RIGOROUS EDUCATION, superiorclinical experience, medical research, and service to the commu-nity at the University of Maryland School of Medicine reachesback to the years following the American Revolution. Duringthe early period of this nation, medical care for most people

meant seeking advice from the local apothecary orrelying on folk remedies. The few physicians

who survived the Revolutionary War hadbeen trained in Europe. People who couldafford it might be treated with bleedings orpurgatives, considered “state-of-the-art” inthe late 18th century.

In 1799, a group of physicians formedthe Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of

Maryland to regulate physicians. Their goalwas to provide a course of study that would

elevate the burgeoning profession and nurturethe development of medical education inAmerica. For many years, lectures were held inprivate homes.

Dr. John Beale Davidge, a physician trained at the Universityof Glasgow, began offering lectures on obstetrics and surgical sciences in 1802. Five years later, using his own funds, Davidgebuilt an anatomical theater and lecture hall at Fayette andLiberty streets, where students were taught human anatomythrough the dissection of cadavers. Outraged by what was perceived as the desecration of human remains, angry citizensdestroyed the building.

Not long afterward, members of the medical society peti-tioned the state legislature to establish a permanent college ofmedicine in Baltimore. Established in 1807, the entity that cameto be known as the University of Maryland is the fifth oldest ofthe 125 medical schools in the U.S., and the oldest public medical school.

By Bruce Goldfarb

Research, Patient Care, & Community ServiceUMB Celebrates 200 Years of Education,

Bicen

tennial

UMB Celebrates 200 Years of Education, Research, Patient Care, & Community Service

John Beale Davidge

Anatomical dissection was a required course of study for these School of Medicine students from 1903, who were inspired by the words of WilliamKnox and William Shakespeare visible on this dissection table.

The medical school was rechartered in 1812 as theUniversity of Maryland, charged with annexing schools of law, arts and sciences, and divinity, although the latter never materialized. That same year, with money raised by the medicalschool faculty, the building eventually known as Davidge Hallwas erected at the northeast corner of Lombard and Greenestreets.

An architectural and engineering marvel of the time,Davidge Hall features the circular Chemical Hall, whichaccommodates 200 people on the first floor, and the domedAnatomical Hall on the third floor. During the 25-hour bom-bardment of Fort McHenry in 1814, students were able to

watch the battle from the front portico of Davidge Hall. In1817, a medical college library was established at theUniversity through donations from Dr. John Crawford, thefirst physician to vaccinate Baltimore residents against smallpox.

Davidge Hall remains the oldest medical school building incontinuous use for medical education in the Western Hemishpere.Within its walls are collections of medical instruments andartifacts, and one well-preserved cadaver named Hermie. Thebuilding was placed on the National Register of Historic Placesin 1974 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997.

In 1823, the 50-bed Baltimore Infirmary was constructedat Lombard and Greene streets, making the medical school the

oday the University of Maryland,

Baltimore is an economic engine,

generating $16.54 for every $1

invested by the state. In addition, the

University has granted 60 percent of the pro-

fessional degrees awarded in Maryland during the

last 10 years. Six thousand people work on the Baltimore

campus, with another 16,000 jobs supported or created

through indirect impacts. For Fiscal Year 2005, the University

generated more than $2.2 billion in economic activity.

This unstoppable momentum and vision for the

University’s growth is perhaps best embodied in the

UMB BioPark. Designed as an incubator where biomedical

discoveries from the University’s many laboratories can be

developed and commercialized, the master plan includes

10 buildings with 1.2 million square feet of space on

10 acres. The UMB BioPark’s first private-sector tenant, a

subsidiary of Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories, Ltd.,

moved into Building One in the fall of 2005. Building

Two is scheduled to open this summer.

To celebrate and commemorate the School of Medicine’s

bicentennial and the origins of the University of Maryland,

Baltimore, Maryland magazine presents a condensed history

of each school. Travel back in time and discover, as we did,

what makes up the exciting patchwork of people and

circumstances that gave birth to this great institution that

we call the University of Maryland.

T Scho ol of Med ic in e {

B Y B R U C E G O L D F A R B

S P E C I A L C O N T R I B U T O R S : T R A C Y B O Y D A N D M A R Y S P I R O


first in the nation to build its own teaching hospital for clini-cal instruction. In addition, the School of Medicine becamethe first medical school to require anatomical dissection as acourse of study and was the first school to institute a residencytraining program.

For many years, the University of Maryland Hospitalremained organized within the School of Medicine in a seriesof ever-larger buildings. The facility was spun off as a private,nonprofit medical center, now known collectively as theUniversity of Maryland Medical System, in 1984. Today, theSchool maintains major hospital affiliations that include theUniversity of Maryland Medical Center, Baltimore VeteransAffairs Medical Center, Mercy Medical Center, and MedStarHealth.

More than half of all practicing physicians in Marylandhave been trained and educated at the University of MarylandSchool of Medicine, which was the first to incorporate medical informatics—the science of electronically gathering, storing,manipulating, and retrieving patient data—into the curricu-lum. To meet the growing need for physician-scientists, theSchool of Medicine now offers combined MD/PhD programsin 10 medical disciplines, an MD/MS in preventive medicine,and an MD/MPH degree.

Today the School of Medicine has 1,265 students, with

more than 600 pursuing their MD. Another 400 students arein MD/PhD or other graduate-level programs, and more than250 students study allied health. In addition, several organizedresearch centers have been established that involve the Schoolof Medicine, including the centers for health policy and healthsciences research, integrative medicine, mucosal biology,research in aging, vaccine development, and vascular andinflammatory diseases. School of Medicine programs includegenetics and genomic medicine, neuroscience, oncology, andtrauma.

Throughout the School of Medicine’s 200-year history, itsfaculty members have contributed many medical breakthroughs,including a cure for typhoid fever, the first antibiotic treatmentof Rocky Mountain spotted fever, the first laparoscopic ulcersurgery, and the first simultaneous kidney-pancreas transplant.

Students at the School of Medicine receive superb clinicalexperience in numerous settings, such as the University ofMaryland Medical Center and its Marlene and StewartGreenebaum Cancer Center, R Adams Cowley Shock TraumaCenter, and Hospital for Children. Poised at the threshold of its third century, the School of Medicine continues a tradition of training professionals who care for the residents of Maryland and the region, providing progressive scientificadvancement, and serving the needs of the community.

PLANS FOR A LAW SCHOOL at the University of Marylandwere initiated in 1812. The new school—to be called the MarylandLaw Institute—was spearheaded by David Hoffman, a Baltimorenative and prominent member of the bar who had been lecturingabout law to students at the University’s medical school.

In 1817, Hoffman published what is regarded as America’s firstlaw textbook, A Course of Legal Study Addressed to Students and theProfession Generally. Associate Justice of the Supreme Court JosephStory called Hoffman’s book, “by far the most perfect system for thestudy of law that has ever been offered to the public.”

Hoffman’s goal was to elevate the profession of law with a solidacademic foundation, a course of study that was revolutionary at thetime. A faculty of five other lawyers joined Hoffman, and in 1823the first students enrolled for courses.

In the early years, attendance was low, and in 1836 the LawInstitute temporarily ceased operation. Hoffman, who died in 1854,did not live to see the revival of the law school in 1870 by medicalfaculty member Christopher Johnston, when the growing legalneeds of a post-Civil War boom in the state created a demand forlawyers. John J. Donaldson, J.H.B. Latrobe Jr., Harry E. Mann,Charles K. Poe, and Samuel E. Turner Jr. were the first to graduatefrom the School’s program.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some of the mostimportant names in Maryland legal history—Albert Ritchie, Edgar

Bicen

tennial

Class of 1925

School of Medicine students and facultyengage in research,interdisciplinary collaboration, and community outreach.

The law department building, now East Hall, adjacent to Davidge Hall. Circa 1812.

Scho ol of Law {Dr. John Crawford, above,

donated his personal libraryto the medical school.

Students observe surgery, right.

University Hospital. Circa 1897.

Gans, Henry Stockbridge, W. Calvin Chesnut, and HerbertTiffany—joined the faculty of the School of Law. When theUniversity took over the Baltimore Law School in 1912, its stu-dents and faculty joined the school’s structure as well.

Two world wars, however, took their toll on enrollment.But while student numbers fluctuated, the contents of theSchool’s law library grew, thanks to Maryland Court ofAppeals Chief Justice Frederick W. Brune. Though not a graduate of the School, Brune had been raised by his uncleJohn J. Donaldson, a member of the School’s first graduatingclass. Brune learned his love for law from Donaldson’s exten-sive personal law library and, upon his death, bequeathed hisuncle’s books, to be kept and identified as the DonaldsonCollection. Today, the School of Law’s Thurgood MarshallLaw Library—rededicated in 1979 in honor of the legendaryMaryland native—contains more than 400,000 volumes ofAnglo-American legal materials, along with international andforeign law collections.

The School of Law now stands among the top ranked ofthe nation’s public law schools. Taking an interdisciplinaryapproach to legal education, the law school works closely withthe medical, dental, nursing, social work, and pharmacy schools.Opportunities for experiential learning abound in the School’sprograms on clinical law (ranked fifth by U.S.News & WorldReport), health care law (ranked third), and environmental law(ranked fourth).


UNTIL THE MID-19TH CENTURY, dentistry was providedby a few physicians who chose to specialize in oral health, by practitioners who learned in apprenticeship to a dentist, or byself-taught individuals who were mechanically inclined. So it isno surprise that one of the founders of the world’s first dentalschool, Dr. Horace Hayden, was a self-educated man whoseinterests ranged from art and architecture to geology and medicine. As a student of George Washington’s favorite dentist,John Greenwood, Hayden soon recognized the need for a systematic, formal education in dentistry.

Hayden was “far ahead of his time,” wrote H.L. Menckenin the 1937 Baltimore Evening Sun. “He believed that dentistryshould be taken away from the locksmiths and barbers whocommonly practiced it a century ago, and elevated it to thedignity of a medical profession.”

During the 1820s and 1830s, Hayden and a former student,Dr. Chapin A. Harris, lectured on dentistry to medical schoolstudents at the University of Maryland. In 1840, the statechartered the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery (BCDS),the first dental school in the world. The first official dental lecture of the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery was delivered on Feb. 3, 1840, with five students in attendance.

“There were no entrance requirements; any strong youngfellow with a taste for mechanics was welcome,” Menckennoted. BCDS has served as a model of dental research, educa-tion, and clinical practice around the world ever since.

It took more than half a century for what would be calledthe University of Maryland Dental School to emerge. First, theMaryland Dental College, founded in 1873, merged with theBCDS in 1878. Shortly thereafter, in 1882, the University ofMaryland Medical School founded a dental department. In1895, the Baltimore Medical College started a Dental

Department, but by 1913, it had merged with the Universityof Maryland. Ultimately, the Baltimore College of DentalSurgery and the University’s medical school Dental Departmentwere combined to form a distinct college—what is now referredto as the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, University ofMaryland Dental School.

Today, the Dental School continues to lead in education,clinical services, and research. Along with the DDS degree anddental hygiene program, the School offers research and fellow-ships in subspecialties such as endodontics, oral and maxillofa-cial surgery (an MD program), orthodontics, and periodontics.Through the Dental School’s Department of BiomedicalSciences, students take a multidisciplinary approach to thestudy of oral and craniofacial biology, as well as many otherbioscience specialties.

The School is the single largest provider of oral health carein the state, with students and faculty fielding more than130,000 patient visits in its clinics each year. In addition, studentsand faculty provide comprehensive and emergency dental services to persons of all ages, including the uninsured andunderserved residents of the state. The Special Patient Clinicprovides oral health care services to individuals with mental or physical disabilities. The School’s PLUS program servesindividuals living with HIV, and the Quest for Care programhelps people in financial need receive dental care services.

Through continuing education programs, the DentalSchool faculty and guest speakers provideopportunities for practitioners throughoutthe state to learn about current researchand patient care practices. In 1999,the Dental School opened theCenter for Clinical Studies to facil-itate and support clinical researchand the Brotman Facial PainCenter to study and treat facialpain. The School is ranked No. 3by the National Institutes of Health

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Law students learn through discussion, as well as through the proceedings in the ceremonial courtroom, located in the School of Law.

The Dr. Samuel D. Harris NationalMuseum of Dentistry draws thousandsof visitors each year.

Dental School clinicsprovide communityoutreach and experience for students.

Above, the Hayden andHarris commemorativecoin for Dental Schoolcentennial

Left, Baltimore MedicalCollege, DentalDepartment. Circa 1900.

Edward Grace,director of theBrotman Facial Pain Center

among all U.S. dental schools for research funding. It is alsohome to the University of Maryland’s Organized ResearchCenter on Persistent Pain, which uses multidisciplinaryapproaches to manage chronic pain.

In 2003, construction began on a new Dental Schoolbuilding. This $142 million, 375,000-square-foot academicfacility includes classrooms, research laboratories, state-of-the-art clinical space for a variety of outreach services, andoffices for faculty and staff. The new building, which openedin September 2006, continues a legacy of leadership in education, treatment, and research by the University ofMaryland Dental School.

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DURING THE EARLY 19TH CENTURY, the emergenceof pharmacology from the folk tradition of materia medica (thescience or study of drugs, their preparation and properties, anduses and effects) paralleled the stunning progress in the field ofchemistry. The isolation of alkaloids and glycosides, along withthe development of vaccines, launched a far-reaching pharma-ceutical revolution. In addition, scientific methods meantremedies could be formulated with known strength and purity,unlike their botanical counterparts.

Lectures began at the Maryland College of Pharmacy, progenitor of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy,shortly after it was incorporated in 1841. It was the fourthschool of pharmacy in the nation, and it remains the onlypharmacy school in Maryland.

Initially chartered for just 30 years, the Maryland Collegeof Pharmacy was given a permanent charter by state lawmakersin 1870, as long as its assets never exceeded $10,000. (Thisarchaic provision became obsolete when the University wasrechartered and reorganized in 1920.) The Maryland College of Pharmacy remained an independent institution until 1904,when it became part of the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

In 1994, the four-year professional doctorate (PharmD)

was adopted to better prepare students to deliver pharmaceuticalcare and integrate research into clinical practice. The doctorateprogram is ranked eighth in the nation by U.S.News & WorldReport and consistently ranks in the top 10 of pharmacyschools in the nation.

Aside from educating generations of pharmacists who serve in the community, the School of Pharmacy is involved in a wide range of basic and clinical research, including drug discovery and development, drug delivery systems, pharma-cogenomics, drug policy development, and drug therapy and aging. About 95 students are enrolled in PhD programs in the School.

To facilitate the collaboration between the School ofMedicine and the School of Pharmacy, the 100,000-square-

WHEN THE UNIVERSITY’S MEDICAL SCHOOL underwrote the con-struction of a 50-bed teaching hospital in 1823, the profession of nursing did notformally exist. In fact, nuns—the Catholic Sisters of Charity—provided bedsidecare to Baltimore Infirmary patients until nearly the end of the 19th century.

All that changed in 1889 when Louisa Parsons, a graduate of FlorenceNightingale’s school of nursing at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London, initiated plansfor a two-year nursing training program in Baltimore. With the assistance of medical school faculty, the University of Maryland became home to one of thenation’s oldest formal nursing programs. Eight students graduated in the first classof the hospital’s training school in 1892, and within a few years the curriculumwas expanded to create a three-year program.

The School of Nursing became an independent entity from the School ofMedicine when the University of Maryland’s schools were reorganized in 1920. In 1952, the School of Nursing began offering a Bachelor of Science in Nursing(BSN). The science and the profession of nursing grew, and the School beganoffering master’s degrees in 1954 and a PhD program in 1979. As interest in theprofession and the demand for nurses grew, a state-of-the-art addition to the existing School of Nursing building was opened in 1998 to accommodateincreased enrollment.

A variety of innovative educational programs has been forged at the School,including the first nursing informatics program in the world, and the nation’s firstnursing health policy program. In 1999, the School of Nursing began offering agraduate program in nurse midwifery, the only such program in the state. In thesame year, the School opened the University of Maryland School of NursingLiving History Museum to collect, preserve, and exhibit artifacts relating to the

Working in the laband in the community,

School of Pharmacystudents are involved

in research and outreach.

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foot, $78 million Health Sciences Facility II opened in May2003. The School of Pharmacy occupies the top two floors ofthe building that the School shares with the School of Medicine, thereby doubling the laboratory space for Schoolof Pharmacy researchers and students to investigate the biologyof disease, mechanisms of drug action, and drug design.

The School of Pharmacy continues its commitment toaddress the needs of the community through the MarylandPoison Center, the Drug Information Center, the Center onDrugs and Public Policy, the Office of Substance AbuseStudies, and the Peter Lamy Center for Drug Therapy andAging.

Today, the School admits 120 new PharmD students eachyear from a pool of more than 1,500 applicants. Graduatesreturn to the community to practice in hospitals, retail phar-macies, or other clinical settings, while others continue on toadvanced training at the School of Pharmacy. About 70 percentof School of Pharmacy graduates continue to work and live inMaryland.

Basic laboratory researchhas been at the foundationof the School of Pharmacy’s

educational philosophysince 1841.

Scho ol of Nur s ing{

Louisa Parsons



DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION, as citizens through-out the state were displaced by economic hardship, the need tocare for disadvantaged members of the community came intosharp focus.

Despite a burgeoning need for social service workers, noschool in Maryland provided a course of education in the field.By the 1950s, the idea of creating a social work school began totake shape among social service professional groups andUniversity officials.

After years of planning, the University of Maryland Schoolof Social Work was chartered in 1961. The School’s firsthome was the second and third floors of the old tire andbattery shop of the Hecht Company at 721 W. RedwoodSt., which had been used by the University as a warehouse.

The School began with a dean and two facultymembers. Twenty full-time and eight part-time students enrolled during the School’s first year. Theprogram grew to meet the expanding needs of the profession, from the initial master’s in social work with a concentration in casework, to the incorporation of community planning by 1970. Three years later, eightcandidates received the master’s of community planning, and later, social administration became the third concentrationwithin the School.

Initially, the School was scattered in five different locationson the Baltimore campus, but the construction of Louis L.Kaplan Hall in 1983 allowed faculty, students, and staff tocome together under one roof at 525 W. Redwood St. Sincethen, facilities for the School were expanded in 2002 toinclude space in a new building shared by the School of Law.

In its short history, the School of Social Work has helped totrain thousands of individuals in this noble profession whoserve a vital role in promoting the well-being of individuals, families, and communities. Students help serve communitiesthrough more than 600 programs and field instruction sites inBaltimore, the state of Maryland, Washington, D.C., andthroughout the mid-Atlantic region.

The Center for Maternal and Child Health Social WorkEducation is dedicated to the study of psychosocial and societal factors that affect the health of infants, children, adolescents, and their families. The Center for Families andFamily Connections is a collaborative effort between theSchool of Social Work and School of Medicine to promotethe safety, health, and well-being of children, families, andcommunities through community and clinical services,research, education, and advocacy.

Wellmobile Program, delivers services to as many as 6,000uninsured or underinsured residents in communitiesthroughout Maryland each year. This amounts to more than$1.3 million in non-reimbursed health care. The savings tothe state in emergency room visits alone is estimated toexceed $2 million. In September 2005, two of theWellmobiles were dispatched to Brookhaven, Miss., to carefor 2,000 people displaced by Hurricane Katrina. In addition,the School of Nursing provides nurse practitioner services at12 school-based wellness centers in Baltimore, Harford, andDorchester counties.

Today, the University of Maryland has the largest nursingschool in the state, with approximately1,400 students enrolled. About 41 per-cent of the state’s professional nursework force graduated from theUniversity of Maryland School ofNursing, and U.S.News & World Reportconsistently ranks it among the nation’stop 10 graduate schools.

From its inaugural graduating class of 1892 until today, the School of Nursing has educated health care professionals who put patient needs first. At bottom left, the 50-bed Baltimore Infirmary where patients were cared for by the nurses from the University of Maryland.

Early social work class

SWCOS Baltimore CitySchool’s outreach program

Classroom instructioninvolves community-based research.

One of the Governor’s Wellmobile Programmobile health units

School’s history from 1889 to the present.In 2004, the School began offering a master’s degree in

nurse anesthesia, as well as one in clinical research manage-ment. That same year, the School of Nursing established itsfirst Center of Excellence—the Center for Work and HealthResearch. The School of Nursing now offers more than 20 specialties at the graduate level, including trauma/criticalcare, oncology, gerontology, psychiatric/mental health nursing,and nursing administration. To help meet the critical shortageof nurse educators, a certificate in Teaching in Nursing andHealth Professions was created in 2005, and a Doctor ofNursing Practice was launched in the fall of 2006.

Faculty and students of the Schoolof Nursing engage in millions of dollarsworth of research in the areas of occu-pational, community, and enviromentalhealth; early prevention and treatmentof cancer; cardiovascular health; geron-tology/aging; and exercise and nutritionin HIV-infected populations.

One of the most well-known out-reach programs operated by theSchool of Nursing, the Governor’s

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Louis L. Kaplan, left, is the namesake for thebuilding that houses the School of Social Work.


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Learn the secrets of the great cooks of the University ofMaryland, Baltimore. Faculty, staff, students, and alumni havecreated a commemorative cookbook to celebrate 200 years of great eating. This one-of-a-kind cook’s companion is sure to become a historical treasure all its own.

Order your copy of UMB Cooks today by using the conven-ient envelope included with this issue of Maryland magazine.

Proceeds from cookbook sales benefit the Presidential Scholarship Fund administered by the University of MarylandBaltimore Foundation, Inc. Publication of UMB Cooks is scheduledfor March 2007.

For questions about UMB Cooks, please contact Sarah Wise inthe Office of University Events at 410-706-8035.

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL of the University of Marylandwas established in 1918 under the jurisdiction of the GraduateCouncil, with the dean of the Graduate School serving as thechair. It promotes and enhances research, scholarship, andadvanced study between faculty and students pursuing

Scho ol of Publ i c Heal th{

Public health professional students, graduate students, andstudents from UMB’s other professional schools participate intraining and research that takes advantage of an interdiscipli-nary approach to public health through the collaboration ofthe University’s professional schools. Such an approach facili-tates the new School’s mission to prepare a new generation ofpublic health leaders to serve the community; investigate pop-ulation-based causes, prevention, and treatment of healthproblems; and develop collaborative initiatives in teaching,research, and service.

With a 200-year history of innovation, the University ofMaryland, Baltimore remains a leader—not just in educatingMaryland professionals—but in advancing the health and humanservices of all people. Pursuing scientific, technological, and socialadvances that the founders of UMB could not have imagined, theUniversity will transform the future in the next 200 years andbeyond. c

The Family Welfare Research and Training Group partnerswith the Maryland Department of Human Resources and localagencies to provide research, training, and information servicesthat shape policies related to welfare and child support reform.The Ruth H. Young Child Welfare Center was formed in1998 to enhance knowledge and provide resources and supportfor research in the areas of child mistreatment and child welfare.Researchers at the center seek to improve the safety and well-being of vulnerable children while strengthening families.

The School’s Social Work Community Outreach Service,or SWCOS, creates innovative models of social work educationand services that strengthen underserved individuals, families,and communities in Baltimore and elsewhere in Maryland.

The School of Social Work is ranked seventh in the nationin faculty scholarship by the Journal of the Council on SocialWork Education.

The Next 200 Year s

{ {

Commemorative Cookbook

graduate and doctoral degrees.Today, the University of Maryland Graduate School,

Baltimore offers 27 master’s and doctoral degree programs inhealth, biomedical, medical, social, and population sciences.Working together with the University’s other professionalschools, the Graduate School offers joint degrees includingMD/PhD, DDS/PhD, and PharmD/PhD programs. TheGraduate School also coordinates studies in biochemistry,gerontology, neuroscience, and toxicology with otherUniversity System of Maryland graduate programs.

THE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF MARYLAND Board ofRegents approved the creation of a seventh professional school,the School of Public Health, in June 2006. The University hasbeen offering a master’s degree in public health since 2004through the School of Medicine.

Other existing multifaceted graduate programs that will be transferred to the School of Public Health include epidemiologyand preventive medicine, toxicology, and gerontology. Combineddegree programs include medicine (MD/PhD), pharmacoepi-demiology (PhD/MS), and environmental law/toxicology(JD/MS).

R E S E A R C H PAT I E N T C A R E C OM M U N I T Y S E RV IC E

DAN

IELLEPETERSO

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While leading a wide-ranging revolution in thetreatment of breast cancer, world-renownedbiochemist Angela Brodie, PhD, also chartered an unusual career path. Andthough the soft-spoken Brodie might not

emphasize her accomplishments, the achievements realized bythis 70-year-old professor of pharmacology and experimentaltherapeutics at the University of Maryland School of Medicinespeak volumes about her life’s work. Brodie’s pioneeringresearch on aromatase inhibitors led to the first new drug in adecade (released in 1994) specifically designed for the treatmentof breast cancer.

As an international cancer researcher, Brodie developed adrug therapy that helps prevent recurrence of breast cancer inpost-menopausal women by reducing the level of estrogen produced by the body. In June 2005, in recognition of her scientific discovery and subsequent medical breakthrough,Brodie became the first woman to receive the Charles F.Kettering Prize, considered by many in the medical communityto be the “Nobel Prize” of cancer research.

The award, one of three $250,000 prizes presented annually by the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation,is bestowed on scientists who make an outstanding contribu-tion toward the diagnosis, prevention, or treatment of cancer.Brodie earned the prize for developing formestane (4-hydroxy-androstenedione), the first in an entirely new class of drugscalled aromatase inhibitors.

These drugs have been proved to prevent post-menopausalwomen from developing recurring bouts of hormone-dependentbreast cancer, which includes 70 percent of all breast cancer.Formestane is also being used to treat breast cancer that hasmetastasized. The drug works by “starving” hormone-dependentcancers of estrogen—their primary source of fuel.

Recent studies are proving these inhibitors to be significantlymore effective than the standard breast cancer drug, tamoxifen,

which stops working after five years. While tamoxifen blocksthe effect of estrogen, aromatase inhibitors actually stop the pro-duction of estrogen. “Using aromatase inhibitors, there is a sta-tistically significant improvement over tamoxifen,” Brodie says.

“Today, the drugs Angela developed that are in clinical usehave reduced the recurrence of breast cancer by as much as 40 percent for some women. That translates into tens of thou-sands of women worldwide,” says Kevin Cullen, MD, directorof the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart GreenebaumCancer Center. “Now, we’re finding out that these drugs mayalso prevent breast cancer in a significant number of womenwho are at high risk.”

When Brodie first began studying estrogen and its effectson hormone-dependent breast cancer in the 1970s, she couldnot have predicted the successful outcomes she would eventuallyobtain. She simply followed her instincts, refusing to relenteven when few others believed in them.

“It seemed like there should be a better way of doingthings,” Brodie says matter-of-factly, reflecting on earlier, lesseffective methods of blocking estrogen from advancing thegrowth of breast cancer. First there was the removal of women’sovaries, which Brodie calls “horrendous.” Next came hypophy-sectomy–surgical removal of the pituitary gland. “It’s a sort ofgruesome surgery that resulted in a lot of morbidities and mortalities.”

Continuing a Family Tradition Brodie, who was born and raised in Manchester, England,

found herself caught up in the world of science long before sheentered into a research career. “I was always interested in beinga scientist. I hadn’t thought about being anything else,” Brodierecalls. She credits this in large part to “a lot of ‘science talk’ athome.”

Brodie’s father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were allchemists in Manchester. Her late father, Herbert Hartley, was a


Leading a Quiet Revolution in Women’s Health Care:Breast Cancer ResearcherAngela Brodie


Cancer researchers examine changes in expression of a protein in tumorsassociated with hormone resistance. From left to right: Gauri Sabnis, Adam Schayowitz, T. Sean Vasaitis, Angela Brodie, and Luciana Macedo.

B Y E L I Z A B E T H H E U B E C K


When a competitive gymnast takes a tumble, herinstinctive reaction is to jump up and get back intothe routine, perfectly poised and without skipping abeat. Third-year medical student Audrey Segal trusted

similar instincts while pursuing a medical career. Now scheduled to graduate with the University of Maryland

School of Medicine Class of 2007, Segal had just embarked onher dream of becoming a physician when she was diagnosedwith a rare blood disorder known as aplastic anemia. Initially,Segal thought her extreme fatigue was due to seemingly endlesshours of late-night studying. But when bruises and small redmarks appeared on her chest and arms, she had the first hintthat something was amiss.

Segal grew up in Canada, where she pursued an avid interestin gymnastics. Extremely active and healthy, the medical studentwas caught off guard by the severity of her diagnosis. Aplasticanemia renders the body incapable of normal blood cell production and requires immediate treatment in the form ofimmunosuppressive therapy, blood transfusions, and/or bonemarrow transplant.

Treatment itself is time-consuming and draining. Since herOctober 2004 diagnosis, Segal has undergone two transfusionseach month.

Despite the surprise of her diagnosis and the time requiredfor treatment, Segal remains steadfast in her devotion and

commitment to medical school. She enteredmedical school with a desire to pursue a specialty in pediatrics. Her interesttoday leans more toward pediatric oncologyand hematology.

“Maybe it’s because I can relate to patientsmore. A lot of things they’re going through, I’vegone through too. It’s definitely impacted how Italk to patients and how I relate to patients.”

Segal says she has been “incredibly inspired”by the children she has met in her experiences atthe University of Maryland Medical Center—patients with an optimistic outlook and fewcomplaints.

Many see these same traits in Segal herself.She had just completed her first year of medical

school, and was in the second month of her second year when shehad to reconcile the devastation of her diagnosis with herdreams for the future. “Did I stay in school or did I take timeoff?”

There were thoughts of returning to Canada to be close tofriends and family. But Segal chose to remain at the UMBcampus—the place that fostered an environment where shecould move forward.

“I came down for my initial interview and loved it,” Segalrecalls. “It just seemed like the faculty were so interested in students. The professors here know my name. Everyone is sofriendly, so supportive, and they have been wonderful through-out this experience.”

Segal took just two months off from her studies—makingup the work that summer—but there have been points ofexhaustion along the way when she’s slept for 16 hours at atime. Her transfusions have been accompanied by a series ofinfections, side effects from medications, and a skin cancerscare. Segal, however, remains undeterred as she continues totake life day by day.

“I am so happy I stayed in school. I could have gone homeand felt sorry for myself. I could feel sorry forever. Instead, Iam pursuing my dreams. And,” she adds, “I have my whole lifeahead of me.”

Segal’s survival hinges on the availability of blood—and thegenerosity of strangers who provide donations. “When I thinkabout my own treatments, that’s 60 people who have saved mylife. That’s a big thing for me to impart to people—howimportant it is to donate blood.”

For information on blood donation, visit www.givelife.org. c

Keeping Her Eyes on the PrizeB Y G W E N N E W M A N

S T U DE N T P R OF I L E AU DR EY S EG A L S C HO OL OF M E DIC I N E

PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBERT BURKE42 U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A R Y L A N D, B A L T I M O R E

pioneering organic chemist in the polyurethane industry. Theanti-tank hand grenade that he designed for use in World WarII earned the acclaim of Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

In spite of following the long line of chemists in her family,Brodie points out that she did deviate slightly from their careerpaths. “I was interested in biology. So I guess I did rebel a littleby becoming a biochemist,” she says with a laugh.

From Concept to Clinical ApplicationBrodie’s lifelong study of the link between estrogen and

breast cancer began in 1962. That year, she received a NationalInstitutes of Health-sponsored fellowship at the WorcesterFoundation for Experimental Biology in Shrewsbury, Mass. Shemet other influential scientists there, including her husband,Harry Brodie, an organic chemist. During the next 18 years,Angela Brodie concentrated on developing aromatase inhibitors.Since 1975, her research has been supported through fundingfrom the National Institutes of Health.

After moving to the University of Maryland School ofMedicine in 1979, Brodie developed a collaboration with anoncologist in London. In the first clinical trial, which enrolled11 women with advanced breast cancer, four of the subjectsshowed immediate and significant improvement. After treat-ment with aromatase inhibitors, the tumors shrunk to less thanhalf their original size. Not until then did pharmaceutical companies show interest in funding Brodie’s work on aromataseinhibitors. Novartis (then Ciba-Geigy) agreed to support addi-tional, larger-scale trials after learning of the remarkable results.

A New Approach to TreatmentAlthough Brodie’s professional trajectory seems like a

smooth, steady ascent to outsiders—and she won’t come outand say otherwise—it has not been without challenges.

Brodie’s first paper on the efficacy of aromatase inhibitorswas rejected by the editors of the journal Cancer Research in1976; they called the findings “too obvious.” Brodie remainedundeterred. “We revised the paper and added more convincingevidence, and it was published.” Years later, Brodie is now aneditor of Cancer Research.

V. Craig Jordan, PhD, vice president and research director atPhiladelphia’s Fox Chase Cancer Center, confirms Brodie’s per-sistence. “Angela is quiet but precise with remarkable tenacity todo what others believed to be impossible: to create a newapproach to treat breast cancer,” says Brodie’s former colleague.“Angela’s translational research and the practical applications ofher vision have changed health care,” says Jordan.

A Role Model for Women While Brodie was fighting the challenging battle of convinc-

ing the scientific community to accept an entirely new way tofight a deadly disease, she and her husband were also raisingtwo children.

In 1956, Brodie graduated with honors from the University

of Sheffield in Great Britain with a degree in biochemistry.About pursuing her research goals and raising a family in the1950s, Brodie says, “I was very keen on doing both things.”

Brodie acknowledges that it required many prudent deci-sions and sacrifices. “I was able to work part-time when thechildren were very young. I had good child care. We also livedonly about 10 minutes from the lab. Nevertheless, I did workin the evening and weekends as needed,” she says.

Brodie’s ability to strike a strong work-family balance andsucceed on both fronts has not gone unnoticed by colleaguesand students. “She is a really good role model for me becauseshe is a woman and has a family, and is really devoted to herresearch,” says Wei Yue, PhD, MD, a former student of Brodie’swho is now associate professor of research of internal medicineand endocrinology at the University of Virginia.

Breaking Through Professional Barriers Women entering scientific professions in the 1950s often

encountered hostile working environments. For example,female astronomers were banned from using the 200-inch telescope at Mount Palomar, wrote Helen Hill Miller in a 1957article in The Atlantic Monthly. And some industrial corpora-tions refused to hire women engineers, according to Miller.

But Brodie had the advantage of beginning her researchcareer at the Worcester Foundation—in a lab headed by awoman and where several female scientists were carrying outresearch. It was at the Worcester Foundation in 1957 that scientists developed the birth control pill, just one of severalfoundation projects relating to women’s health.

Although Brodie describes her professional path as “some-what lonely,” co-workers depict her as someone who alwaysextends herself wherever there is a need.

“She has achieved more than almost any of us in sciencecould ever dream of, and has done it in a way that is completelycollegial and generous,” Cullen notes. “She’s always the onewho will be on the graduate student thesis board, or who willreview a draft for a younger faculty member.”

Yue agrees: “Whenever I had a question or a problem, Icould knock on her door and discuss it with her. She didn’t justmeet with students once a week. Every day she was there, andshe was always very helpful.”

Professionally and personally, Brodie, who received theBrinker International Breast Cancer Award for Basic Researchfrom the Susan G. Komen Foundation in 2000 and theDorothy P. Landon American Association for Cancer ResearchPrize in 2006, has set an unparalleled path for emerging scien-tists to follow. “She is the crowning example of the excellencethat exists here at the University of Maryland,” Cullen says.

At 70 years of age, Brodie is not ready to detour from theroad she has paved for cancer research. Her laboratory is nowinvestigating inhibitors of androgen synthesis as potential agentsfor treating prostate cancer. “Actually, it seems like the pace is justspeeding up,” says Brodie. (See Founders Week profiles, p. 56.) c

C linicians know that as patients become more savvyabout health care, they demand the latest andgreatest treatments available. At the same time, scientists involved in basic research are spurred to

deeper investigations when they know that their results havepractical applications in clinical settings and can be viable inthe marketplace. Together, the needs of patients and the appli-cations of clinical research will create the basis of a new curricu-lum to train the next generation of health care professionals.

It is in this spirit of collaboration that University ofMaryland Dental School clinicians have joinedforces with researchers from a variety of disciplinesto find solutions to patient treatment problems.

44 U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A R Y L A N D, B A L T I M O R E PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND DENTAL SCHOOL AND SCHOOL OF MEDICINE.

Collaborations such as the one that the Dental School isinvolved in are not only exciting, but also necessary, says Fisher.“We can’t successfully complete this kind of research in a vacuum.Often the basic science researchers, engineers, and clinicians donot interact, and that is a loss to all parties. We need to fosterthese interdisciplinary relationships.”

“Interdisciplinary collaborations such as the one between theDental School, the School of Pharmacy, and the School ofEngineering at College Park represent the future of research,”says UMB President David J. Ramsay, DM, DPhil. “Throughsuch joint efforts, we can tackle health care challenges with creative and innovative approaches. Such collaborations also willadvance our position as a leading academic institution.” c

With its advanced technology and state-of-the-art facilities,the new Dental School, which opened in September 2006, isthe perfect place to maximize the potential of basic research,clinical applications, and instruction. Researchers from theDental School, the School of Pharmacy, and the University ofMaryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering BiomaterialsLab in College Park form the core of this collaborative effort.

In the last several months, professionals from these diversedisciplines have convened on the Baltimore campus to discussways in which their individual research interests can work

together to address a variety of medical challenges.Through this process, the group will generate excit-ing research investigations, enhance educational

Working Together to Improve PatientCare


opportunities, and develop innovative and practical ways ofimproving patient care and outcomes.

“The new dental facility is an ideal place, not only for the traditional lecture, but also for electronic learning and coopera-tion with other campuses for teaching and research,” says JohnSauk, DDS, MS, associate dean for research administration andtraining.

Researchers at the Dental School are involved in a variety ofpatient-care enhancing investigations. They include the study ofbiofilms (drug-resistant microbial communities), bone scaffoldsand modeling, craniofacial reconstruction, dental implantintegrity, regeneration of the periodontium (the connective tissuesurrounding the root of a tooth), genomics and proteomics (thestudy of genes and their related proteins with regard to drugdiscovery and tissue engineering), tissue targeting, and tissueimaging.

Basic research in tissue engineering, for example, has found practical applications in oral and maxillofacial surgery.Researchers from the Biomaterials Lab have developed adegradable “scaffold.” It consists of bone-cell generating osteo-progenitors, encapsulated in a hydrogel, that signal the regener-ation of replacement bone matter when placed in an area wherebone has been lost due to trauma or disease.

“The ultimate idea is to replace the patient’s missing tissuewith like tissue ... all while minimizing donor morbidity issuesinvolved with harvesting patient tissue for reconstructive purposes,”explains John Caccamese, DMD, MD, oral and maxillofacialsurgeon and assistant professor in the Department of Oral andMaxillofacial Surgery.

When engineering students see the clinical relevance of theirbasic research, they become really excited about their work, saysAssistant Professor of Bioengineering John Fisher, PhD, whoheads the Biomaterials Lab in the College Park engineeringschool’s Fischell Department of Bioengineering.

“We could develop the best materials in the world, but ifthey were not feasible for use in an actual surgical setting, theywould be of no use,” Fisher explains. Fisher has been appointedas an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Oral andMaxillofacial Surgery to introduce some of his lab’s biomaterialsconcepts to Dental School students.

Managing pain and preventing infection also are two veryimportant issues relating to patient care and satisfaction.Solutions to both of these clinical problems can be found in thescience of nanomedicine, which involves monitoring, repairing,and affecting biological systems at the molecular level throughthe use of tiny, engineered devices and structures (see relatedstory, page 53 ). In nanomedicine, a polymeric carrier that has

New Frontiers in Dental New Frontiers in Dental

B Y M A R Y S P I R O

Research and EducationResearch and Education

been functionalized for drug delivery can target drugs to veryspecific sites within the head or neck, while minimizing theimpact on surrounding tissue.

“Through nanomedicine, we can not only follow the fate ofdrug delivery by tracking where it goes (with various imagingmodalities), but we are also working on ways of correlatingthese drug delivery systems to their therapeutic effect,” explainsHamid Ghandehari, PhD, associate professor in the School ofPharmacy and director of the Center for Nanomedicine andCellular Delivery.

In addition, targeted drug delivery systems can be used totreat patients with cancer in the head or neck, or to alleviateinflammation caused by infectious diseases. Patients being treatedfor a multitude of oral, cranial, or maxillofacial conditions arefinding relief through these targeted drug delivery systemsdeveloped through basic research.

Research findings that improve clinical care will, in turn, propel curriculum in new directions, forming the foundations ofnew courses for the Dental School. “We will start with introduc-tory interdisciplinary courses in translational research and trans-lational research applications and then assess student interest inother areas,” Caccamese says. Because of this interdisciplinaryapproach, clinicians and students alike will have to look beyondtheir area of expertise to the basic sciences for solutions, Sauk adds.

Along with the research and educational advances madethrough these early collaborative efforts, partnerships with business and industry also will increase. One such example isthe $2 million grant to the Dental School from Nobel Biocareto launch new initiatives in curriculum, patient care, research,and development in advanced techniques in dental implants,esthetic dentistry, and guided surgery. In addition, opportunitiesfor ideas generated through the Dental School initiative alsomay be tested, developed, and commercialized by biosciencecompanies working at the UMB BioPark.

For more than two decades, judges, lawyers, andjuries have relied on DNA tests to establish identityto help convict the guilty, free the innocent, anddetermine paternity. But when it comes to usingthese tests for identifying health and behavioral traits

that can play an important role in the outcome of the case, thelegal system is forging new ground, and there is not always aconsensus on what that ground should cover.

Enter Diane Hoffmann, JD, MS, associate dean of theSchool of Law and director of the Law and Health Care Program,and Karen H. Rothenberg, JD, MPA, dean of the School.Intrigued by how judges are making decisions about whetherto compel or admit genetic tests, they decided to survey thestate’s judges. They received responses from 101 of 140 statecircuit court and 16 of 25 Maryland federal district court judges.

“What we found was that the judges were quite sophisticatedand discriminating in their willingness to use the tests or tohave them play a role in litigation,” says Hoffmann.

Hoffmann and Rothenberg designed their survey around aseries of hypothetical criminal and civil cases. The results oftheir two-and-a-half year effort, the first of its kind in thenation, were published in an October 2005 edition of Sciencemagazine, the fifth article on genetic policy that Rothenberghas co-authored for the magazine during the last 10 years.They’re working on publishing a major law review article onthe survey.

“The work we’re doing is cutting edge,” says Rothenberg.“Few of these cases have yet to reach the courts,” she adds.

“After we received the judges’ responses, it became clear tous that we needed to better understand why they answered thequestions the way they did,” says Hoffmann.

Hoffmann and Rothenberg organized meetings with groupsof judges in five of the state circuit courts and in the state’s

federal district court to discuss the results of their survey.“Not only were we able to get good information qualita-

tively and quantitatively, but it was also a chance for the judgesto talk among themselves about these issues, and for them tocontinue to debate them,” says Rothenberg.

In the criminal cases, 54 percent of the state and 38 percentof the federal judges would allow a positive genetic test forschizophrenia to show that the defendant did not have the nec-essary intent to commit the crime. “This case,” says Hoffmann,“gave the judges considerable concern. They were really dividedabout whether to admit the test, even when it was at therequest of the defendant. Several judges said, ‘The ultimatequestion would be whether the information would be moreprejudicial than probative,’ while others said an expert witnessin genetic testing ‘could help jurors interpret the test results.’”

The judges were even more cautious in the area of sentenc-ing. Only 18 percent of the state and 15 percent of the federaljudges said they would compel a defendant to be tested for acondition that brings on bouts of rage in order to show thedefendant’s potential for violence.

“In this area, they’re trying to predict, ‘Is this person goingto be a danger to society—can we let them out?’” saysHoffmann. “Even at the sentencing phase, where there arefewer privacy concerns and constitutional matters, they reallythought this was branding someone, or stigmatizing someonein a way that was very unfair.”

By contrast, more judges would compel genetic tests in acivil case when determining the issue of causation in order toshow that the plaintiff ’s developmental disabilities were due toa genetic defect and not the defendant’s negligence. Eighty-fourpercent of the state and 75 percent of the federal judges wouldcompel the test in a case where an obstetrician is sued for medical malpractice, to help determine whether the child’s

46 U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A R Y L A N D, B A L T I M O R E PHOTOGRAPH BY CARLOS ALEJANDRO

Genetic Testing in the Courtroom


developmental disabilities were a result of a genetic defect or thephysician’s negligence.

Regarding damages, the judges were hesitant to force aplaintiff to take a test to determine if that person had a diseasethat would decrease his or her life span, because such a diseasecould decrease the amount the defendant would have to pay.Only 44 percent of the state and 39 percent of the federal judgessaid yes to such a test. When it comes to admitting a test thatshows the plaintiff has an increased sensitivity to pain, whichcould lead to a higher damages award, however, 82 percent ofthe state and 62 percent of the federal judges would allow sucha test.

Judges also considered how a jury would comprehend thequestions that are raised by genetic testing. “I think judges arevery concerned whether juries would be confused by the test orrely too much on them by seeing them as hard evidence,”Hoffmann says. “But that’s a situation that’s not totally uniqueto genetic tests—it often happens when jurors are presentedwith a lot of scientific evidence.”

The study raises a number of complex and significant issuesthat will be debated in the judiciary for years to come, addsHoffmann.

“Our goal is that the study would be helpful to judges, andit’s not just judges that are our target,” says Hoffmann. “We’retalking about rules governing the introduction of evidence—whether judges should compel a test and then admit it into evi-dence. And those rules may be determined by a group of policymakers, legislators and judiciary members, or appellate judges.”

She credits the success of the survey to the partnershipbetween herself and Rothenberg. “Her expertise in the field andher respect among the judiciary both informed the survey andensured a good response from the judiciary,” says Hoffmann.

The dean adds, “It was great to work together on the survey.It is special to have a colleague with whom you can do suchgroundbreaking work.”

“It’s still very early in the introduction of these tests into thelegal process so we don’t have a lot of experience as to howjudges are viewing them,” says Hoffmann. “It’s likely that judgeswill start to see them more and have to deal with the issue—thewhole relationship between genes and behavioral traits.”

As to the import of this survey and future surveys that mayfollow, Hoffmann and Rothenberg know that this is just thebeginning of the debate that could ultimately help lead to a better consensus about the use of genetic tests in the courtroom.

B Y L O R I R O M E R

MAINTAINING A DELICATE BALANCE:

c

A pril 26, 2006, marked the 20th anniversary of thenuclear accident at Chernobyl in the Ukraine. Whena nuclear reactor exploded at 1:23 in the morningand burned, spewing radioactivity far and wide,

authorities were unprepared to treat those individuals who hadreceived lethal doses of radiation.

Many people did not realize they were in danger. Oral his-tories taken from survivors in ensuing years revealed that citizensliving in the shadow of Chernobyl, and in the path of thedeadly wind following the meltdown, had little to no knowl-edge of radiation hazards. Some sat on their rooftops, watching,awed, as the flames roared and the invisible, deadly rain poureddown. In conflict still is the total number of the casualties whodied from lethal doses of radiation in the hours, days, and weeksfollowing the tragedy.

If a nuclear incident occurred in the United States, eitherby accident or design, how ready are we to deal with largenumbers of severely radiated victims suffering acute radiationsyndrome (ARS)? According to Thomas MacVittie, PhD, pro-fessor of radiation oncology at the School of Medicine, we arenot ready—not by a long stretch.

Although Americans lived in fear of a nuclear attack duringthe Cold War, preparations for treating mass radiation casualtiesin the aftermath of a nuclear accident or attack are still lacking,even with post-Chernobyl knowledge.

“Chernobyl is a good example—from a treatment perspective—of a situation in which a large number of people survived lethaldoses of radiation because of expert supportive care, despite thefact that victims were not properly treated with available appro-priate therapeutics or mitigators,” says MacVittie, principalinvestigator (PI) on a five-year, $46 million National Instituteof Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) grant aimed at clinical preparation for a nuclear incident.

According to MacVittie, supportive care in combinationwith available drugs is still the best treatment protocol availabletoday. “Good supportive care—with fluids, antibiotics, nutri-tional support, and blood products—can save the lives ofseverely irradiated people,” he explains. But MacVittie and histeam, which includes experts from the University of Illinois-Chicago and Indiana University as well as from UMB, areexploring other treatment protocols for high numbers of

casualties from a nuclear accident or attack.Although treating radiation exposure is a complex public

health issue with many unknown factors, the work funded bythe largest research contract ever received by the School ofMedicine is not aimed at evaluating threat scenarios, nor areinvestigators charged with devising public health logisticalefforts necessary to treat victims.

For MacVittie and colleagues, the top priority is testingcandidate medications that might prove useful in treating largenumbers of severely irradiated patients with serious respiratory,gastrointestinal, and blood cell damage.

Today a nuclear attack is less likely to come from the warheadof an intercontinental ballistic missile, as was feared during theCold War. A more likely scenario is the detonation of animprovised nuclear device (IND) by a terrorist.

MacVittie says, “We are not talking about a ‘dirty bomb,’”a radiation dispersal device that would probably not be highlydestructive, nor produce ARS. Rather, the mass casualty treat-ment scenario focuses on the detonation of a fairly large, per-haps one kiloton improvised nuclear device (the Hiroshimaatomic bomb was 12 kilotons) that could produce a thousandor more moderately or severely radiated casualties.

According to MacVittie and a co-investigator Ann Farese,MS, research associate in the Department of RadiationOncology, there is a great need for more practical approachesto protect the American public from the aftereffects of radia-tion from an IND. They point out, however, that there are currently no drugs approved by the U.S. Food and DrugAdministration (FDA) for the treatment of lethally irradiatedpeople. Treatment drugs could include drugs that are alreadyapproved for treating the aftereffects of chemotherapy, such as

48 U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A R Y L A N D, B A L T I M O R E ILLUSTRATION BY DOUGLAS FRASER

SCHOOL OF MEDICINE RESEARCH:

Targeting the Effects ofMass Radiation


neupogen, uelasta, and interleukin-11, but the drugs must beapproved by the FDA for such an application.

In the event of mass exposure to radiation, the first chal-lenge would be sorting out the degree of victim exposure.Patients with Level I exposure could be treated as outpatients.Level II, moderate exposure, would require closer attention.Those irradiated at Level III would be considered severely irradiated and would have to be hospitalized. Level IV wouldinvolve victims who, without aggressive treatment, would succumb to fatal doses.

Symptoms of ARS include malaise, nausea, vomiting, andloss of consciousness. Those receiving severely high doses ofradiation would suffer thrombocytopenia (low blood platelets)and granulocytopenia (low white blood cells) as the lethal dosesof radiation shut down the production of these cells aimed atfighting infection and preventing bleeding. However, some victims could be rescued from both kinds of blood injury onlyto succumb to a fatal gastrointestinal (GI) crisis.

Severe radiation exposure would destroy cells in the GItract, preventing the mucosal barrier from doing its job ofscreening out noxious bacteria and chemicals. The destructionwould also prevent the stem cells that line the GI tract fromcarrying out their normal, three-day, total rejuvenation cycle.The hope would be, that with appropriate supportive care andnew treatments to promote cell regrowth, the GI tract could bestabilized and regenerated toward normalcy.

“Those exposed to high doses of radiation can survive if fluidsare replenished, antibiotics are given, electrolyte imbalances arerestored, and the mucosal immune system is stabilized andrecolonized with resistant flora,” says Alessio Fasano, MD, pedi-atric gastroenterologist, director of the School of Medicine’s

Mucosal Biology Research Center, and co-PI on the NIAIDgrant. “Blood cells and platelets can be replenished by transfu-sion, but the function of the GI tract, particularly its barrierfunction, must be rebuilt by promoting cell growth—if patientsare to survive.”

Since there are no FDA-approved drugs for treating thoselethally radiated, MacVittie’s team is looking at current medica-tions and determining how they can be better used. The blood-forming system, like the GI tract, must be similarly rebuiltusing drugs that stimulate stem cells to renew themselves.

Existing drugs should be stockpiled, along with antibioticssuch as Cipro®, for use in the event of an IND incident, sug-gests MacVittie. Furthermore, drugs already approved for use inthe clinic to treat chemotherapy-induced myelosuppression(inhibition of the bone marrow’s production of red blood cells,white blood cells, and platelets) and mucositis (inflammation ofthe lining of the mouth, throat, or GI tract) should be madeavailable in all clinical treatment centers and hospitals. MacVittiealso notes that there are no treatments for victims with both highirradiation levels and injuries, such as severe burns or other trauma.

Although treating mass casualties in the event of an INDincident is the impetus for the grant, finding better protocolsfor treating the medical needs of radiated cancer patients is astudy application that could be applied to everyday clinical use,says MacVittie.

“The advantage with clinically administered radiation is wecan control the dose,” says MacVittie. “That’s not the case withan IND of course. But what we learn about cellular regenera-tion and accelerating cellular growth in this study will have aprofound effect on the treatment for patients receiving radiationand/or chemotherapy.” c

B Y R A N D O L P H F I L L M O R E


There’s an old proverb that asks the rhetorical question: Howdo you eat an elephant? The answer: One bite at a time.

Likewise, tackling the public health challenges of the21st century only can be accomplished one step at a

time. Public health efforts focus on health not disease, areproactive not reactive, and address populations rather thanindividuals. An interdisciplinary approach that involves scien-tists, policymakers, researchers, and outreach workers will helpfind solutions to the problems that plague modern societies,such as cardiovascular disease, infectious diseases, psychiatricdisease, and physical injuries, to name just a few.

In the last century, public health professionals createdtremendous momentum for positive change. Infant mortality isdown and life expectancy is up. But since the terrorist attacksof Sept. 11, and with the U.S. population surpassing 300 millionpeople, what is expected of public health professionals todaywill change by tomorrow. Diseases linked to population, aging,and environment, as well as the threat of bioterrorism, havealtered the landscape of public health forever.

Add to this the fact that the American Public HealthAssociation reports that 50 percent of the federal public healthwork force and 25 percent of the work force among states—including Maryland—will retire in the next five years, and theneed for new, highly skilled public health professionalsbecomes apparent. To meet this challenge, the University ofMaryland, Baltimore (UMB) established the School of PublicHealth in 2006—the University’s seventh professional schooland the first new school at UMB in 45 years.

“Professionally trained public health workers are urgently

needed,” says David J. Ramsay, DM, DPhil, University presi-dent, who cites a 2003 report by the Institute of Medicine onthe future of public health. “Nationally, it has been estimatedthat 80 percent of public health workers lack specific publichealth training, and only 22 percent of chief executives of localhealth departments have graduate degrees in public health.”

In June 2006, the University System of Maryland Board ofRegents approved the creation of the School with the understand-ing that UMB will work collaboratively with the University ofMaryland, College Park, which seeks to create its own school ofpublic health. In October 2006, UMB received approval fromthe Council on Education for Public Health to begin theprocess of accreditation for the new School.

UMB has been offering a public health professional degree,the Master of Public Health, through the School of Medicinesince 2004. Graduate degree programs in epidemiology andpreventive medicine, toxicology, and gerontology have beenavailable for several years.

“The mission of the School of Public Health is to advancethe health of diverse populations in Maryland and elsewhere,”says Ramsay. “It will accomplish this by preparing public healthleaders to serve the community; investigating population-basedcauses, prevention, and treatment of health problems; anddeveloping collaborative initiatives in teaching, research, andservice.”

Dedication to community outreach through partnershipswith state and local health offices and other public serviceagencies is one important component of the University ofMaryland School of Public Health, says Charlene Quinn, PhD,RN, the School’s interim associate dean for public health outreachand an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiologyand Preventive Medicine in the School of Medicine.

“Local public health issues need the support of a university-based school of public health to translate research into targetedsolutions and to provide services,” says J. Glenn Morris Jr.,MD, MPH&TM, interim dean of the School of Public Healthand professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiologyand Preventive Medicine.

For instance, recent incidents of food-borne disease (e.g.,bagged spinach contaminated with E. coli) could be studiedlocally by public health faculty, researchers, and students,Morris adds.

Morris anticipates that outreach efforts at the School ofPublic Health also will include the following: aging, injury prevention and control, health disparities among individualswith chronic diseases, epidemiology of infectious diseases, public policy, toxicology, women’s health, preventive medicine,biostatistics, animal-to-human disease transmission, and others.

The dean of the School of Social Work, Richard P. Barth,PhD, MSW, heads the interdisciplinary committee managingthe search for a dean of the School of Public Health. TheSchool will be headquartered on the third floor of BuildingTwo of the UMB BioPark, with an anticipated move-in date of November 2007. c

S C HO OL P R OF I L E S C HO OL OF P U B L IC H E A LT H


M.Jane Matjasko, MD, believes in the power of education. She learned early in life that mindset cantriumph over lack of funds when it comes to achievingone’s life goals. After reaching the pinnacle of her

own career, Matjasko is determined not to let lack of fundshinder other individuals with a passion for her field of anesthe-siology.

After 30 years as a pioneer in her profession, Matjaskodescribes her background as “pretty simple.” Although hermother graduated from high school, her father never did. Asone of six children, Matjasko realized it was not wealth thatwould allow the Matjasko children to achieve their dreams, butrather sheer determination and opportunity. “Whatever we didwas going to be difficult,” she reflects. “So why not do exactlywhat you wanted?”

Hard work is what first exposed Matjasko to the world ofmedicine. One of her summer jobs was in a hospital in herhometown of Pittsburgh. She worked in central supply, stock-ing shelves and cleaning inventory. Although the work wastedious, the young Matjasko became hooked on the study ofmedicine.

After graduating from the Medical College of Pennsylvania,she became an intern at the University of Maryland School ofMedicine in 1968. She joined the faculty in 1972 as an instruc-tor, and in 1990 she was appointed professor and chair of theDepartment of Anesthesiology. Matjasko was not only one ofthe first females to chair a department at the University ofMaryland School of Medicine—but also one of the first in theUnited States.

Described as a trailblazer, Matjasko is goal-oriented andquick to identify needs as well as areas of opportunity andgrowth. After her retirement in November 2005, she and herhusband, Shao-Huang Chiu, MD, who trained in orthopedicsat the University of Maryland, decided to support the Schoolof Medicine and the Department of Anesthesiology with a generous donation.

Through their gift, two endowed professorships have beenestablished in Matjasko’s honor to enhance and support ongoingresearch and education in the School’s Department ofAnesthesiology. The endowments will provide a continuousstream of funding that will increase over time, ensuring thatthe department can hire and support the brightest minds in thefield of anesthesiology.

The field of anesthesiology, with its “great reputation forpatient safety,” has become one of the most popular and soughtafter professions in medicine, notes Matjasko. Yet a shortage ofclinicians in the 1990s led to a subsequent lag in funding forresearch and education.

“Everybody had to be ‘all-hands-on-deck,’” recalls Matjasko,one of the charter members and past presidents of the Societyof Neurosurgical Anesthesia and Critical Care. “The situationrequired full attention to the clinical mission. Once I realizedwhat was happening, I began thinking of ways to improve thesituation. This gift,” she says, “was just a natural, an opportunitywe couldn’t let pass by.”

The Matjasko gift establishes the first endowed professor-ships for the Department of Anesthesiology. The first chair inthe department was named in honor of Martin Helrich, MD,in 1987 at Matjasko’s suggestion. The Bicentennial Campaignfor the University of Maryland School of Medicine hopes toestablish an endowed chair or professorship in each of its 24 academic departments. c

Fostering a Promising Future for AnesthesiologyB Y G W E N N E W M A N

M. Jane Matjasko and her husband, Shao-Huang Chiu

P R OF I L E S I N G I V I NG M . JA N E M AT JAS KO, M D S C HO OL OF M E DIC I N E

One Step at a Time:

New School Addresses Health of Diverse PopulationsB Y M A R Y S P I R O

One Step at a Time:

New School Addresses Health of Diverse PopulationsB Y M A R Y S P I R O

2007 R E S E A R C H & S C H O L A R S H I P 53ILLUSTRATION BY JENNIFER FAIRMAN

W hen the partnership betweenRexahn Pharmaceuticals and theUniversity of Maryland Center for Nanomedicine and Cellular

Delivery (CNCD)—the recently established centerfor developing nano-sized drug delivery systems—was announced in January 2006, the collaborationmade sense to everyone.

“Once I understood the mission of the center,building a partnership became a no-brainer,” saysGeorge Steinfels, PhD, MBA, chief business officerof Rexahn Pharmaceuticals and a 1980 alumnus ofthe School of Pharmacy. Based in the School ofPharmacy, the multidisciplinary research centerspans two campuses and five schools and colleges inthe University System of Maryland.

Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, based in Rockville,Md., has ongoing clinical development programsfor the treatment of cancer as well as drugs relatedto treating diseases of the central nervous system.However, the company would like to find noveland more effective ways to deliver those drugs.

“Drug delivery is what we do for a living,” confirms Hamid Ghandehari, PhD, director of theCNCD and professor in the School of Pharmacy.Through nanomedicine—the convergence of nanotechnology and medicine—researchers at thecenter are developing nano-sized systems for targeteddelivery of drugs and radionuclides to disease sitesfor more effective diagnosis and therapy.

“Our job in the partnership will be to developdrug delivery strategies for Rexahn,” notesGhandehari. “We will do the bench science andthey, in turn, will get the drugs to the bedside.”

What makes all kinds of sense in the bigger pic-ture is that smaller pharmaceutical companies—

One year after the grand opening of Building One, theUMB BioPark is gaining momentum and fulfilling itsvision.

“The BioPark’s development to date has exceededour expectations,” says Richard J. Himmelfarb, member of theBoard of Directors of the Health Sciences Research ParkCorporation and chair of the University of Maryland BaltimoreFoundation, Inc.

“In less than two years, we went from the acquisition of 4.7 acres of vacant land from the City of Baltimore to onecompleted building, a parking garage, solid plans for two morebuildings, and additional acreage to double the size of the projectbeyond its initial scope.”

About 200 employees now work in Building One, and the number is growing as companies like Alba TherapeuticsCorporation continue to add staff to speed the development of its new compounds. Of the 120,000-square-foot building,85,000 square feet are devoted to lab space, 40 percent morethan expected.

“We have a great mix of tenants including UMB scientistsconducting basic research, commercial spinoffs of UMB andJohns Hopkins University, a significant international company,and companies and organizations providing important servicesto the biomedical industry,” says Jim Hughes, vice president forresearch and development at UMB.

The early-stage companies of FASgen™; Irazu BioDiscovery,

LLC; and Acidophil, LLC, are the latest tenants to occupyBuilding One. They join UMB’s Center for Vascular andInflammatory Diseases; Japanese-owned SNBL ClinicalPharmacology Center; Alba Therapeutics Corp.; UPMPharmaceuticals, Inc.; The Harbor Bank of Maryland; and the life science practice of Miles & Stockbridge P.C.

Current research includes the development of therapeuticsfor cancer and metabolic disorders such as obesity and diabetes,and drugs that mimic the known biological protection and age-decelerating effects of severe caloric restriction.

“UMB BioPark companies have the potential to develop a number of important new treatments for some of society’smajor diseases,” says Hughes.

The vision for the BioPark includes fostering collaborationbetween University researchers and BioPark companies. Thetwo companies founded on UMB technology, Alba TherapeuticsCorp. and UPM Pharmaceuticals, have extensive interactionswith the University.

“Being in the BioPark gives us immediate access to the University and its facilities,” says Blake Paterson, CEO of AlbaTherapeutics Corp. “It’s a fluid access that enhances the pro-ductivity and quality of work. This cross-fertilization is unique.”

Another goal for the BioPark is to promote economic devel-opment in the surrounding Poppleton community, which hassuffered from years of urban decay and disinvestment. As partof its commitment to the community, Building One developerTownsend Capital, LLC, has pledged yearly donations to support community-related programs.

In 2006, Townsend gave nearly $30,000 to the PoppletonVillage Center Corporation to support its job training and educational programs. The amounts are expected to grow asmore buildings are developed.

Across Baltimore Street, Building Two is well under con-struction with completion expected in summer 2007. UMB’snew School of Public Health is the first tenant to lease space inthe new building, which is being developed by Wexford Science& Technology, LLC. At 215,000 square feet, the building willbe nearly twice the size of Building One. Special features ofBuilding Two include a 100-seat auditorium, conference rooms,and a 10,000-square-foot vivarium.

Plans for a third BioPark building were initiated in 2006when the state’s Office of the Chief Medical Examinerannounced that a new facility would be located on the cornerof West Baltimore and Poppleton streets. Construction for thisfacility is expected to be completed in 2009.

As Wexford, real estate broker Colliers Pinkard, and BioParkstaff seek prospective tenants for Building Two, plans for thelong-term development of the park continue to take shape.

“Ultimately, the BioPark is about the biomedical researchbusiness that will take place within its walls, but creating anattractive external environment that is closely integrated withthe community and UMB campus is part of our vision,” statesHughes. Visit www.umbbiopark.com. c


B U S I N E S S P R OF I L E

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPH BY J. BROUGH SCHAMP

B Y R A N D O L P H F I L L M O R E

Nanomedicine Center’s Link to Pharmaceutical Company Makes Sense—and “Antisense”

UMB BioPark FlourishesB Y J U L I E E V A N S

The master plan for the UMBBioPark includes 10 buildingswith 1.2 million square feet ofspace built on 10 acres in thePoppleton neighborhood ofWest Baltimore.

without the time or the resources to do bench level science—can form partnerships with innovators in the academic com-munity. At the same time, researchers with links to industrycan benefit as their ideas and their hard work make a differencein patients’ lives.

According to Steinfels, Rexahn wanted the opportunity toaccess technology developed at the University. That wouldaccelerate the timeline needed to implement new technology.

“The reasons why companies should enter into a joint venture like ours with the University of Maryland are many,”says Steinfels. “First, we hope to increase the speed of drugdevelopment and shorten the time to market. Second, the partnership also provides us with research and developmentexpertise, including technology and a com-petitive edge, especially in drug delivery.We want to see how far we can leveragethe opportunity between Rexahn and theUniversity to maximize the benefits forboth parties, and ultimately, for patients.”

And that’s where the “antisense” comesin. Antisense drugs prevent genes fromproducing harmful proteins that can causecancer.

The center and Rexahn are currentlyworking together on developing a nano-sized (a nano is one billionth of a meter)delivery system for its new drug RX-0201,designed to treat several types of cancers.For their part, Ghandehari and colleaguesare designing an oligonucleotide-baseddelivery system to deliver antisense geneticmaterials to deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)or ribonucleic acid (RNA).

Oligonucleotides are synthetic shortsequence nucleotides, or sub-units ofDNA or RNA. Complementary (anti-sense) nucleic acids, or copies, can bedesigned to bind to specific messengerRNA molecules. In other words, antisenseoligonucleotides are single strands of DNA or RNA manipu-lated in the lab to form complementary copies of normalDNA or RNA, but they can be used to de-activate disease-causing genes by binding to the genetic material that theycopy.

While using oligonucleotides and antisense strategy is onthe cutting edge of drug therapy, the potential has great promiseonly if the antisense oligonucleotides can be delivered effica-ciously. That’s not easy, notes Ghandehari. Since the expressionof some proteins causes disease, intact delivery of the oligonu-cleotide will be therapeutically essential.

“Oligonucleotides are easily degraded in the blood and not

easily transported across cell membranes,” says Ghandehari.“Intact, they can interfere with the machinery that expressesproteins.”

The trick—and both the art and science—is to get theoligonucleotides where they are needed and get them thereintact. The practice of isolating and cloning genes provides thepossibility of being able to insert normal copies of genes intopeople with genetic diseases (gene therapy).

“RX-0201 is a proprietary drug that is completing its“first-in-man” studies (phase 1) and is expected to start phase2 later this year,” points out Steinfels. “We are looking toimprove its pharmaceutical properties, such as its biodistribu-

tion and efficacy, through a novel deliverysystem.”

Professor and chair of the School ofPharmacy’s Department of PharmaceuticalSciences Natalie Eddington, PhD, isenthusiastic about the potential for newtherapies. “The partnership between theCNCD and Rexahn is extremely exciting.It will facilitate the development and evaluation of new technologies for drugdelivery and will foster our mission oftraining scientists to combat human dis-eases,” says Eddington.

Another unique aspect of the partnershipis the postdoctoral program established byRexahn. With joint appointments atRexahn and the School of Pharmacy, thepostdoctoral fellows will be part of theteam involved in identifying new and better ways of developing drugs and delivery systems.

“I don’t know of any other company taking on postdocs who have an academicmentor,” says Steinfels. “The unique jointpostdoc is not like an internship wherejust the students learn. We are going tolearn a lot from them.”

Ghandehari and Eddington have alsobeen given slots on Rexahn’s scientific advisory board. “Whenwe come across questions, we’ll have their expertise,” saysSteinfels. “The partnership will allow us to develop technologyand achieve the developmental milestones more quickly.”

The postdocs, hand picked for the job, are drug deliveryexperts. One focuses on using polymers to deliver nucleicacids, while the other works with spherical micelles, nano-scale structures that can incorporate drugs in their protective core.Working with Ghandehari, the postdocs will present Rexahnwith delivery strategies. Rexahn, the University, and patientswill win.

“It just makes sense,” says Ghandehari. c

54 U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A R Y L A N D, B A L T I M O R E ILLUSTRATION BY JENNIFER FAIRMAN 2007 R E S E A R C H & S C H O L A R S H I P 55

“The partnership [with the University of Maryland] also provides us withresearch and develop-ment expertise,including technologyand a competitiveedge, especially in drug delivery, ” saysGeorge Steinfels.

Nucleic acids are potent molecules that can enter a cell to stop theexpression of a disease gene. However, without protective binding factors, nucleic acids will rapidly degrade when injected alone into theblood stream. To be effective, these negatively charged molecules needto bind with positively charged small molecules called nanocarriers(e.g. a liposome or polymer) (A). These complexes are targeted to and uptaken by cells (process known as endocytosis) (B-C), and arereleased within the cell to interrupt disease gene expression (D-E).

For more effective treatment, nano-sized systems ofdrugs are targeted to the diseased site on the liver.

(intracellular compartment)

An antisense strand


FOU N DE R S W E E K W I N N E R S 2 0 0 6

PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEVE SPARTANA 2007 R E S E A R C H & S C H O L A R S H I P 57

Entrepreneur of the YearAlessio Fasano

“Discovery is to see what everyoneelse has seen and to think what

no one else has thought.” Those wordsfrom 1937 Nobel Prize winner AlbertSzent Györgyi enjoy a prominent place inthe office of Alessio Fasano, MD, thedirector of the Mucosal Biology ResearchCenter (MBRC) at the School of Medicineand founder of the Center for CeliacResearch, which is housed in the MBRCin Health Sciences Facility II.

That sense of discovery, plus rigorousdiscipline, a little serendipity, and a largedose of luck is what Fasano, a pediatricgastroenterologist and professor of pedi-atrics, medicine, and physiology at theSchool of Medicine, credits with guidinghim to some remarkable discoveries andaccomplishments since moving toBaltimore from Naples, Italy, in 1993.

With a scholarship to the School ofMedicine’s Center for Vaccine Development,he initially explored the causes of acute

and chronic diarrhea, hoping to find a vaccine for cholera.

“I was listening to what nature was try-ing to tell me,” says Fasano about the routethat took him to “one discovery afteranother,” leading him away from choleraand toward celiac disease and radicalresearch in autoimmune diseases. “A scientist can think—and then formulate ahypothesis—but nine times out of 10, itgoes in a different direction.”

In 2000, Fasano and his colleagues discovered zonulin, a protein that regulatesthe permeability of the intestine. Theydetermined that when zonulin forces molecules to travel past the natural barriersof the intestine (the tight junctions), it can trigger an autoimmune response thatappears to contribute to a number of diseases, such as celiac disease, multiplesclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and possiblytype 1 diabetes.

“Dr. Fasano’s work represents a para-digm shift in the understanding of tightjunction structure and function in disease,”says Blake Paterson, MD, chief executiveofficer of Alba Therapeutics Corporation.

Paterson founded the company withFasano in 2004 to transfer the zonulintechnology from the lab’s bench top to thepatient’s bedside.

Paterson credits Fasano’s “persuasive-ness, perseverance, and thick skin—alongwith his strong desire to improve the qualityof patients’ lives”—with the resulting part-nership between academia and industrythat led to the success of the biopharma-ceutical company now headquartered atthe UMB BioPark. Fasano, who resignedas interim chief scientific officer in 2006 toreturn to academics full-time, is now chairof the company’s scientific advisory board.

Technology developments from Fasano’slaboratory have resulted in more than 150patents now held by Alba Therapeutics.The company, named the MarylandIncubator Company of the Year in 2006,has completed clinical and human trials ofAT-1001, its lead compound. AT-1001 istargeted toward the treatment of celiac disease and other autoimmune illnesses.

Fasano’s enthusiastic support was also pivotal in enlisting the investment backingthat led to the closing of a $30 million

Series A financing for Alba Therapeutics inAugust 2005. Fasano says the success ofthe biopharmaceutical company would nothave been possible without industry back-ing and President Ramsay’s support. “Tomake discovery a service, you have to haveresources—and a University of Marylandpresident who is an entrepreneur,” saysFasano. — Susie Flaherty

Teacher of the YearLarry Anderson

No doubt the systematic dissection of acadaver leaves a lasting impression on

every first-year medical student. As directorfor the Structure and Development coursesince 1998, Larry Anderson, PhD, aSchool of Medicine professor in theDepartment of Anatomy and Neurobiology,ensures that his students’ encounter withtheir first “patient” not only forms a solidfoundation for the rest of their medicaltraining, but that it is also engaging, enter-taining, and fun.

“This is their introduction to medicalschool,” Anderson says. “They are anxious,pensive, and they’ve probably never seen adead body before. I want to give them achance to gain some confidence.” That isno small task for an 11-week course inanatomy, histology, and embryology.

Before the start of a recent 8 a.m. lecture, Anderson blares some music rele-vant to the day’s topic: Tom Waits’ song“Heartattack and Vine.” “It helps them towake up and gets the students excitedabout learning,” Anderson explains.

He then launches into a gloves-off,hands-on presentation—with props, animation, audiovisuals, and his own brandof humor and drama—to help studentsremember just which artery is which, orwhat size a “normal” heart should be.During the laboratory portion of the class,Anderson spends as much one-on-onetime as necessary to make sure his studentsfully understand the concepts. Later heanswers more questions e-mailed by hisstudents, who call his lessons unforgettable.

School of Medicine 2006 graduateLaurence Edelman, MD, remembers

President David Ramsay and his wife, Anne,host Founders Week each year in October to honor the achievements of faculty, staff,students, volunteers, and alumni. In 2006,the president added a new category ofrecognition—the Entrepreneur of the YearAward—to honor a faculty member whoshows exceptional creativity and resolve intaking the results of basic research fromthe lab to the marketplace.

Six Illustrious Alumni were also honoredand events included a black-tie gala, student cookout, staff luncheon, andresearch lecture.

Alessio Fasano, MD Larry Anderson, PhD Angela Brodie, PhD Rebecca Wiseman, PhD, RN

rooms had the Wellmobile service notbeen available. That translates, she calcu-lates, into a savings of approximately $2 million per year in uncompensated hospital care. And though Wellmobilesprovide care for many immigrants who donot have access to government assistance,Wiseman says most of the patients are U.S. citizens employed full-time in low-wagejobs. Through Wellmobile outreach,patients learn about their eligibility forstate or federal health care programs.

Under Wiseman’s direction, says Gov.Robert Ehrlich, the Wellmobile programhelps identify “all the services for which apatient might qualify.” In addition, hesays, Wiseman “empowers her staff to beinvolved in their service to the community,”and she is a “mentor to those she leads.”

Wiseman is also praised by DelegateKevin Kelly, a member of the MarylandGeneral Assembly from rural AlleganyCounty. “In each region of the state wherethe four Governor’s Wellmobiles are situated,Dr. Wiseman conscientiously works inconjunction with local community officialsto provide patient referrals, hospital/labsupport, and other essential services touninsured individuals,” Kelly says.

On the national front, Wiseman organ-ized the travel of two Wellmobile vans andstaff to Brookhaven, Miss., in the aftermathof Hurricane Katrina, where 2,000 peoplewere treated over a 10-day period. Wisemanalso acquired more than $100,000 indonated supplies to support the relief effort.

Wiseman plans to expand the Wellmobiles’hours to evenings and weekends so thatmore people who work during the week,especially men, can be helped. She alsoplans to provide more education and carefor patients with diabetes, one of the mostcommon diseases among her clients.

“The truth of the matter is that theWellmobile Program is a true safety netprovider that offers many people the carethey would not have been able to receiveelsewhere,” Wiseman says. — Mary Spiro

Our 2007 gala will be held in late October.Visit http://founders.umaryland.edu fordetails.


Anderson showing a concert video of thePeter Gabriel song “In Your Eyes” andAnderson “standing on a table holding aglobe demonstrating how the extraocularmuscles move the eye. I still picture hisdemonstration in my mind when I need totest extraocular movements in a patient.”

By infusing the latest technology intohis continuously evolving course outline,Anderson advances the students’ knowledgebeyond what can be seen and felt to learningthrough multiple imaging modalities,including X-ray-based plain film, computedtomography and magnetic resonance imag-ing films, digital images, three-dimensionalreconstructed models, and computer-generated animations.

“His educational collaborations withthe Department of Radiology have resultedin the routine integration of advancedcomputer-based radiological technologyinto the study of gross anatomy. This com-bination is universally considered founda-tional to the study of modern medicine,”says Calvin Hisley, PhD, assistant professorin the School of Medicine’s Department ofRadiology.

“By introducing these image-basedexploratory methods (routinely used in thedaily practice of radiology) into anatomy,Dr. Anderson smoothly introduces clinicalmethods that contribute to each student’sincreased understanding and enthusiasmfor assisting the patient. It is clear that hisinstructional design philosophy will affectour School for many years to come.”

Anderson, who began his career as areproductive endocrinologist, started teach-ing anatomy courses in 1978. In 1987, asone of the co-founders and director of theIn Vitro Fertilization Program (now calledAssisted Reproductive Technology) in theDepartment of Obstetrics, Gynecologyand Reproductive Services, Andersonbegan assisting couples with their fertilityproblems. Through it all, he never imagined that he would still be teachinganatomy 28 years later.

“Now I realize,” he says, “that I havebeen able to affect the care of many morepatients through teaching our future physi-cians than I ever would have working onmy own.” — Mary Spiro

Research Lecturer of the YearAngela Brodie

For more than 30 years, Angela Brodie,PhD, professor of pharmacology and

experimental therapeutics at the School ofMedicine and a University of MarylandMarlene and Stewart Greenebaum CancerCenter researcher, has led a far-reachingrevolution in the treatment of breast cancerthrough the practical applications of herresearch. Her pioneering work in the roleof estrogens in breast cancer led to thedevelopment of the most important therapyused in breast cancer today: aromataseinhibitors.

She began her studies on compoundsthat would block the conversion of andro-gens to estrogen in the early 1970s at theWorcester Foundation in Shrewsbury,Mass. There she and her husband, HarryBrodie, discovered formestane (4-hydroxy-androstenedione). After relocating her laboratory to the School of Medicine’sDepartment of Pharmacology andExperimental Therapeutics in 1979,Brodie pursued clinical testing of the drug.Brodie’s research has been supportedthrough funding from the NationalInstitutes of Health since 1975.

The encouraging results of a small clin-ical trial in England led to larger trials andthe eventual therapeutic use of aromataseinhibitors to fight breast cancer in post-menopausal women. Formestane wasreleased for worldwide use in 1994 andbecame the first new drug in a decadespecifically designed for the treatment ofbreast cancer.

“It is rare that one individual can take adrug from the phase of synthesis to ultimateuse in patients,” says Richard Santen, MD,professor of internal medicine and associ-ate director of clinical research at theUniversity of Virginia Health System. “Dr.Brodie was the first to envision the develop-ment of aromatase inhibitors for breast cancer.”

Brodie was recognized with the topprize in the world for cancer research whenshe received the Charles F. Kettering Prizefrom the General Motors Cancer ResearchFoundation in Washington, D.C., in June

2005. The $250,000 prize is awardedannually for the most important recentcontribution to cancer treatment.

The cancer researcher also received theBrinker International Breast Cancer Awardfor Basic Research from the Susan G. KomenFoundation in 2000 and the Dorothy P.Landon American Association for CancerResearch Prize in 2006. Brodie deliveredthe annual Founders Week FacultyResearch Lecture “Aromatase Inhibitorsand Breast Cancer: Concept to Clinic” onOct. 26. (See related story on Angela Brodieon page 40.) — Susie Flaherty

Public Servant of the YearRebecca Wiseman

Rebecca Wiseman, PhD, RN, an assistant professor and director of the

Governor’s Wellmobile Program at theSchool of Nursing, is known among herstaff and peers as someone who can bringthe right people together for a commonpurpose and make things happen. With770,000 Maryland residents lacking healthinsurance and access to adequate healthcare, Wiseman is dedicated to bringingbasic, quality health care to as many peopleas possible.

The Wellmobiles—four 33-foot-longmobile health units, each with two examrooms, a reception area, and a basic labora-tory—provide primary health care for theuninsured and underinsured throughoutMaryland. Under Wiseman’s leadership,the number of patients seen daily at eachWellmobile van has increased from three tomore than 15, or as many as 8,000 a year.

“As a nurse, I see access to health careas a right,” she says. “My job is to give ourproviders as many resources as possible sothat they can provide the highest level ofcare possible.” To that end, Wiseman hasdeveloped partnerships with local careproviders, including specialists and regionalhospitals, to establish a network of careand case management for an ever-increasingclient load.

Based on patient exit surveys, Wisemanestimates that 80 percent of her patientswould have been treated in emergency

FOU N DE R S W E E K W I N N E R S 2 0 0 6

Illustrious AlumniMAKING AN IMPACT

Operation Smile FounderWilliam Magee Jr., DDS, MD

Dental School, 1969

Former U.S. Senator and Former Regent for the University System of Maryland

Joseph Tydings, JDSchool of Law, 1953

Retired Physician, Volunteer AssociateProfessor, and Philanthropist

Sylvan Frieman, MD School of Medicine, 1953

Research PharmacistVictoria Hale, PhD

School of Pharmacy, 1983

Four-term U.S. SenatorBarbara Mikulski, MSW

School of Social Work, 1965

Chief Nurse Officer, U.S. Public Health Serviceand Naval Rear Admiral

Carol Romano, PhD, RN, FAANSchool of Nursing, 1977, 1985, 1993

PHOTOGRAPH BY TRACY BOYD 2007 R E S E A R C H & S C H O L A R S H I P 61

U N I V E R S I T Y L E A DE R S H I P 2 0 0 6

ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICERSDavid J. Ramsay, DM, DPhilPresident

T. Sue Gladhill, MSWVice President, External Affairs

James T. Hill, MPAVice President, Administration and Finance

James L. Hughes, MBAVice President, Research and Development

Peter J. Murray, PhDVice President, Information Technology, and Chief Information Officer

Malinda B. Orlin, PhDVice President, Academic Affairs

E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBAVice President, Medical Affairs

ACADEMIC DEANSJanet D. Allan, PhD, RN, CS, FAANSchool of Nursing

Richard P. Barth, PhD, MSWSchool of Social Work

David A. Knapp, PhDSchool of Pharmacy

J. Glenn Morris Jr., MD, MPH&TMSchool of Public Health (Interim)

Malinda B. Orlin, PhDGraduate School

E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBASchool of Medicine

Karen H. Rothenberg, JD, MPASchool of Law

Christian S. Stohler, DMD, DrMedDentDental School

FACULTY, STAFF, & STUDENT LEADERSJulie M. Zito, PhD, MSPresident, Faculty Senate

Kenneth E. Fahenstock, MSChair, Staff Senate

Jason SmithPresident, University Student Government Association

BOARDS OF VISITORS

Dental SchoolWilliam H. Schneider, DDSChair

Guy Alexander, DDSPatricia L. Bell-McDuffie, DDSStanley E. Block, DDSDon-N. Brotman, DDSAllan M. Dworkin, DDSLawrence Halpert, DDSMelvin E. Kushner, DDSMary Littleton, RDHW. Gregory Wims

School of LawPaul D. BekmanChair

Alison L. AstiThe Hon. Lynne A. BattagliaThe Hon. Robert M. BellThe Hon. Richard D. BennettLaura B. BlackThe Hon. Benjamin L. CardinHarriet E. CoopermanThe Hon. Andre M. DavisChristine A. EdwardsMiriam L. FisherJames J. Hanks Jr.The Hon. Ellen M. HellerHenry H. HopkinsEdward F. HouffThe Hon. Barbara Kerr HoweJohn B. IsbisterRobert J. KimRaymond G. LaPlacaThomas B. LewisAva E. Lias-BookerBruce S. MendelsohnHamish S. OsborneGeorge F. PappasJoanne E. PollakThe Hon. George L. Russell Jr.Stuart M. SalsburyMary Katherine ScheelerEdward Manno ShumskyHanan Y. SibelMark C. TreanorArnold M. Weiner

Ex-officio MembersChairmen EmeritiFrancis B. Burch Jr.Joseph R. Hardiman

School of MedicineDavid S. PennChair

Morton D. Bogdonoff, MDThomas S. BozzutoFrank P. Bramble Sr.Jocelyn Cheryl BrambleMichael E. CryorWilliam M. Davidow Jr.Sylvan Frieman, MDRonald GeeseyGary N. GeiselWillard HackermanCarolyn McGuire-FrenkilEdward Magruder Passano Jr.Christine D. SarbanesMelvin Sharoky, MDDaniel E. Wagner

Ex-officio MembersAlice B. Heisler, MDCharles Hobelmann Jr., MD

School of NursingSteven S. Cohen, FACHEChair

Eric R. Baugh, MDScott CorbettDebra B. Doyle, RN, MS, MBAMartha A. DugganAntonella Favit-Van Pelt, MD, PhDJack GildenSonya Gershowitz Goodman, MSFran Lessans, MSVictoria C. McAndrewsKatherine McCullough, RN, MSDavid S. OrosMarian Osterweis, PhDBeth A. Peters, MBAJudy Akila Reitz, RN, PhDCaleb Rogovin, CRNA, MS,

CCRN, CEN

Alan SilverstoneJulie Ann SmithDeborah Tillett, MBAWilliam A. Zellmer, MPH (Pharm)

School of PharmacyRichard P. Penna, PharmDChair

John H. Balch, RPhDavid A. Blake, PhDThe Hon. Harold E. Chappelear,

RPh, LLDPaul T. Cuzmanes, RPh, JDJoseph DeMino, BSPRussell B. Fair, RPhThe Hon. John M. Gregory, RPh, DPSMark A. Levi, PDGina McKnight-Smith, PharmD,

MBA, CGP, BCPSDavid G. Miller, RPhMilton H. Miller Sr.Robert G. Pinco, BSP, JDAlex Taylor, BSPDavid R. TeckmanSally Van Doren, PharmDGeorge C. Voxakis, PharmDClayton L. Warrington, BSPEllen H. Yankellow, PharmD

School of Social WorkStanley E. Weinstein, PhDChair

Jane S. BaumThe Hon. James W. CampbellWilliam T. Carpenter Jr., MDPamela F. CorckranErica Fry CryorAnne P. Hahn, PhDDorothy V. HarrisMargot W. HellerBarbara L. HimmelrichLenwood Ivey, PhDThe Hon. Verna L. JonesRazi F. KosiJean Tucker MannJames W. MotsayJames R. O’HairMary G. Piper

Alison L. RichmanHoward L. SollinsHector L. TorresMeadow Lark Washington

UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF MARYLANDWilliam E. Kirwan, PhDChancellor

Board of RegentsThe University System of Maryland is governed by a Board of Regentsappointed by the governor.

Clifford M. KendallChairman

Robert L. PevensteinVice Chairman

James T. Brady

Thomas B. Finan Jr.

Patricia S. FlorestanoAssistant Treasurer

R. Michael GillTreasurer

Alicia Coro HoffmanAssistant Secretary

Orlan M. Johnson

The Hon. Francis X. Kelly Jr.

Cheryl G. Krongard

The Hon. Marvin Mandel

Robert L. MitchellSecretary

David H. Nevins

A. Dwight Pettit, Esq.

The Hon. Lewis R. Riley Ex-officio

Caitlin E. HeidemannStudent Regent


In Vitro Technologies, Inc. (IVT), a Maryland-based, biotechnologycompany, exclusively licensed a novel in vitro hepatitis C viral(HCV) model used to screen therapeutic antiviral drug candidates.David Oldach, MD, PhD, of the Institute of Human Virology, incollaboration with Scott Heyward, PhD, of the University ofMaryland Biotechnology Institute, and IVT’s CEO/founder PaulSilber, PhD, created an HCV model that offers the pharmaceuticalindustry a valuable tool for identifying HCV-specific therapeuticinterventions. IVT earned more than $10 million in revenues lastyear and was recently acquired by Celsis International plc, a Britishdiagnostics and analytical services company.

Omentec Biosciences, Inc., a startup biopharmaceutical company,aims to develop therapies and diagnostics for diabetes, obesity, andcardiovascular inflammation. An exclusive license was granted fortwo UMB technologies co-discovered by Alan Shuldiner, MD;Da-Wei Gong, MD, PhD; Susan Fried, PhD; Rong-Ze Yang,MBBS, PhD, MD; and John McLenithan, PhD, in the School ofMedicine’s Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Nutrition inthe Department of Medicine. Technologies developed by Omentecare based on the discovery of omentin, a protein selectivelyexpressed in adipose tissue, as a therapeutic drug target for treatingobesity-associated diseases, and serum amyloid protein as a potentialprognostic marker for obesity and its associated diseases.

TOKAI Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a private company in Cambridge,Mass., exclusively licensed a technology directed to androgen syn-thesis inhibitors for developing a treatment for polycystic ovariandisease and prostate cancer. The novel inhibitors, co-discovered byAngela Brodie, PhD; Vincent Njar, PhD; and Yangzhi Ling, PhD,in the School of Medicine’s Department of Pharmacology andExperimental Therapeutics, block two biological sites, each criticalfor androgen biosynthesis, and promise to provide a dramaticimprovement over conventional treatments.

Acologix, Inc., a privately held biopharmaceutical company,licensed technology from UMB for the potential treatment ofinterstitial cystitis (IC), for which there is no current treatment. IC is a bladder condition characterized by serious pain that affectsan estimated 700,000 Americans, 90 percent of whom are women.Acologix signed two separate license agreements with UMB, onefor exclusive rights to a heparin-binding epidermal growth factor(HB-EGF)-like technology and one for therapies targeting a novelhuman peptide known as anti-proliferative factor (APF). Theinventions were co-developed by researchers from UMB and theBaltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center: Susan Keay, MD,PhD; John Warren, MD; Michael Hise, MD; and MichaelKleinberg, MD, PhD. Their research demonstrated the potentialof HB-EGF and APF in the development of a novel interstitialcystitis therapy.

62 U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A R Y L A N D, B A L T I M O R E ILLUSTRATED CHARTS BY EMERY PAJER

R E S E A R C H & DEV E L OP M E N T

Annual ReportUNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BALTIMORE FOUNDATION, INC.

2006

The University of Maryland Baltimore Foundation, Inc. (UMBF),Board of Trustees is a group of influential and committed leaders who arededicated to advancing the goals of the University of Maryland, Baltimore(UMB). This Board provides valuable advice to UMB President David J.Ramsay on matters affecting UMB’s campus, its programs, and the community

it serves. The Board promotes UMB through advocacy and by enlistingfinancial support, and manages and invests gifts and property for the benefitof UMB.

UMB fundraising in Fiscal Year 2006 surpassed all previous records.

The year-end fundraising total was $60.6 million, well ahead of the $57.9 million goal, and a remarkable 14.3 percent beyond last year’s total.

Through fundraising and investment returns, UMBF increased current use

and endowment assets (including pledges) from $100 million in FY05 to$115 million in FY06.

Philanthropic support is vital to ensure the University’s continuedadvancement as one of the nation’s top academic health, law, and human

services institutions. UMBF provides opportunities for alumni, friends,foundations, corporations, and others to support the strategic mission andgoals of the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

Through your gifts, you can shape the future with support that enablesthe University to excel in its mission of providing excellence in education,research, public service, and patient care. (For an example of how donor dollars support the UMB mission, please see page 50.) To contribute to thiseffort, use the return envelope enclosed in this issue of Maryland magazine,or visit http://giving.umaryland.edu. Your contributions are greatly appreciated.

Federal Government$243 million

Corporations$35.2 million

Universities& Hospitals

$27.1 million

State, Local, &Foreign Governments

$43.8 million

Foundations$30.1 million

Extramural Funding

$325M0 $5M $10M $15M

Campus Admin.$2,824,459

Dental$14,088,797

Graduate$70,000

Law$7,053,099

Medicine$323,613,611

Nursing$9,104,883

Pharmacy$13,161,954

Social Work$10,248,216

Taking Technology to the Marketplace

In Fiscal Year 2006, University of Maryland, Baltimore(UMB) researchers attracted $380 million in support

of 1,600 research, service, and training projects. Thediversion of federal funds, in particular the flatteningof the National Institutes of Health budget, contributedto a $15 million decrease in federal support that, inturn, reduced state and hospital funding. Projectsfunded by corporations and philanthropic founda-tions, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,have remained strong. The overall trend is consistentand favorable, showing a remarkable 25 percentincrease in funding since 2002.

Extramural Funding by School, FY06

ExtramuralFundingSources, FY06

Scientific discoveries and advancements at UMB are making an impact in the marketplace.Highlights of recently executed license agreements include:

University of Maryland Baltimore Foundation, Inc.

TOTAL ASSETS

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

$62.3M

$79.4M

$88.3M

$99.9M

$114.7M

$0

$20M

$40M

$60M

$80M

$100M

$120M

-8.7%

4.9%

16.2%

13.5% 13.9%

INVESTMENT RETURNS

-10%

-5%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

TOTAL CURRENT USE FUND INVESTMENT

$32M

$34M

$36M

$38M

$40M

$42M

$35.4M

$40M

$36.4M

$41.6M $40.7M

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

TOTAL EXPENDITURES

$0

$5M

$10M

$15M

$20M

$25M

$30M

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

$20.9M $21.4M $21.1M$19.6M

$26.8M

TOTAL ENDOWMENT INVESTMENT

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

$14.1M

$20.4M

$32.1M

$39.1M

$52.5M

$0

$10M

$20M

$30M

$40M

$50M

$60M


SUMMARY STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL POSITIONJune 30, 2006 and 2005

ASSETS 2006 2005

Investments

Endowment $ 52,477,238 $ 39,063,222Operating 40,653,301 41,592,563

Total investments 93,130,539 80,655,785

Other assets

Contributions receivable 14,786,804 14,238,692Assets held under split-interest agreements 3,036,282 2,849,973Assets due from other foundations, etc. 3,718,187 2,128,327

Total other assets 21,541,273 19,216,992

TOTAL ASSETS $114,671,812 $ 99,872,777

LIABILITIES & NET ASSETS

Liabilities

Payable under split-interest agreements $ 1,565,533 $ 1,546,258Other liabilities 2,820,959 1,811,747

Total liabilities 4,386,492 3,358,005

Net assets

Unrestricted 14,704,811 13,391,009Temporarily restricted 43,742,347 41,218,063Permanently restricted 51,838,162 41,905,700

Total net assets 110,285,320 96,514,772

TOTAL LIABILITIES & NET ASSETS $114,671,812 $ 99,872,777

To obtain a copy of the UMBF, Inc., audited financial statements, please contact Judith Blackburn, University of Maryland Baltimore Foundation,Inc., 660 West Redwood Street, Room 021, Baltimore, MD 21201. Phone: 410-706-2940 or [email protected].


Richard J. Himelfarb, ChairmanExecutive Vice PresidentStifel Nicolaus & Co., Inc.

Edward J. BrodyCEO, Brody Transportation Co., Inc.

Don-N. Brotman, DDSGeneral Dentist

Francis B. Burch, Jr.Joint CEODLA Piper

Daryl A. ChambleePartner, Steptoe & Johnson LLP

Harold E. ChappelearVice ChairmanUPM Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Anna M. DopkinPortfolio ManagerT. Rowe Price Associates, Inc.

James A. D'Orta, MDChairman, Consumer Health Services, Inc.

James A. Earl, PhDPresident, Helena Foundation

Morton P. Fisher, Jr.Partner, Baltimore OfficeBallard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP

Sylvan Frieman, MDRetired Physician andVolunteer Associate Professor

Joseph R. HardimanRetired President/CEO, NationalAssociation of Securities Dealers Inc.

David HillmanCEO, Southern Management Corp.

Wallace J. HoffRetired Vice President/GeneralManager, Northrop GrummanAerospace Systems Division

Donald M. KirsonRetired President/CEO KirsonMedical Equipment Co.

Kyle P. LeggCEO, Legg Mason Capital Management

Sally MichelBaltimore city activist and founderof SuperKids Camp

Milton H. Miller, Sr.Retired Founder, Miller CorporateReal Estate

Joseph A. OddisVice President Emeritus,American Society of Health-System Pharmacists

Thomas P. O'NeillManaging DirectorRSM McGladrey, Inc.

David S. OrosChairman, Aether Holdings, Inc.

Theo C. RodgersPresident, A & R Development

Donald E. RolandChairman, Vertis

Robert G. SabelhausSenior Executive Vice President andDivision Director, Smith Barney

Pauline Schneider, JDPartner, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP

Alan SilverstoneConsultant

Frederick G. Smith, DDSVice PresidentSinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.

C. William StrueverPartner/CEO and PresidentStruever Bros.Eccles & Rouse, Inc.

John C. Weiss, III, MBAChairman, Bio-Technical Institute of Maryland, Inc.Co-Chair, EntrepreneurshipBoard, University of BaltimoreMerrick School of Business

Garland O. WilliamsonCEO/President, Information ControlSystems Corp.

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERSDavid J. Ramsay, DM, DPhil (nonvoting)President, University of Maryland

T. Sue Gladhill, MSWPresident/CEO, UMBF, Inc.

Judith S. Blackburn, PhD, MBATreasurer/CFO, UMBF, Inc.

STAFFMary A. NicholsDirector, UMBF, Inc., Relations

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

E D I T O R I A L B O A R DRobert Barish, MDGail Doerr, MSRonald Dubner, DDS, PhDGeoffrey Greif, DSWJames L. Hughes, MBABruce Jarrell, MD, FACSTeresa K. LaMaster, JDJ. Glenn Morris Jr., MD, MPH&TMJohn Sauk, DDS, MSNorman Tinanoff, DDS, MSCarolyn Waltz, PhD, RN, FAANAngela Wilks, PhD

E X E C U T I V E E D I T O RT. Sue Gladhill, MSW

M A N A G I N G E D I T O RPaul Drehoff, MSM

E D I T O RSusie Flaherty

A S S I S T A N T E D I T O R SRonald HubeMary Spiro

A R T D I R E C T O RTracy Boyd

P R O D U C T I O NJoann FaganDanielle PetersonKeven Waters

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND MAGAZINE

University of Maryland magazine is publishedby the Office of External Affairs for alumniand friends of the dental, graduate, law,medical, nursing, pharmacy, public health,and social work schools.

Send reprint requests, address corrections,and letters to: University of Maryland MagazineOffice of External Affairs University of Maryland 660 W. Redwood St., Room 021 Baltimore, MD 21201 410-706-7820 Fax: 410-706-6330E-mail: [email protected]

General information about the Universityand its programs can be found atwww.umaryland.edu.

660 West Redwood StreetRoom 021Baltimore, Maryland 21201-1541

New Campus Center Linked to the Health Sciences and Human Services Libraryand the School of Nursing, the new five-story campus centerwill offer an inviting, interactive environment for students,faculty, and staff. A fitness center with a swimming pool andother amenities, food vendors, a two-level bookstore,

meeting rooms and offices, informal lounges, and an outdoor terrace are part of the new center now under construction. With a total cost of $49 million, it is due to be completed by September 2008.

2007 Maryland Magazine

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Transcript of 2007 Maryland Magazine