Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Houston are teaming up for new research collaborations. The two Texas Medical Center member institutions have awarded grant funding for nine research projects, each with investigators from both schools, as part of a pilot program resulting from a 2019 Memorandum of Understanding between Baylor College of Medicine and UH to foster new partnerships and research collaborations.

The grants will give awardees $60,000 over 18 months, with each institution providing half the funding. The winners cover research in a wide variety of subjects, including oncology, cardiology, genetics, biochemistry, virology, ophthalmology, molecular biology, nutrition and health services.

Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Houston have unique strengths and resources that can contribute to an outstanding platform for population health and precision medicine. Nine excellent projects were selected from a very large and competitive pool. This joint research collaboration will greatly enhance scientific innovation and discovery that will benefit both our institutions and the city of Houston."

Dr. Ashok Balasubramanyam, vice president for academic integration at Baylor

"The impact of the synergy between the clinical research depth of Baylor and the fundamental and technological biomedical research of the University of Houston will be transformative," said Amr Elnashai, UH vice president for research and technology transfer. "The cohesion of the two research visions was demonstrated from the very first meeting and continues to date. I cannot think of a better, more collaborative and capable research partner than Baylor."

The full list of winners is:

Posted in: Medical Science News

Tags: Biochemistry, Bryostatin, Cancer, Cardiology, Cataract, Cell, Cellular Biology, Evolution, Exercise, Exosome, Eye, Genetics, Genome, Heart, HIV, HIV-1, Hydrogel, Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, Medicinal Chemistry, Medicine, Microbiology, Microbiome, Molecular Biology, Nutrition, Oncology, Ophthalmology, Pediatrics, pH, Pharmacology, Physiology, Progenitor Cells, Research, Stem Cells, Surgery, Telemedicine, Vascular, Virology

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Baylor College of Medicine and UH team up for new research collaborations - The Medical News

Physiology

UVA researchers discover why obesity causes high blood pressure and potential ways to fix – The Medical News

March 10, 2020 medical

Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have discovered why obesity causes high blood pressure and identified potential ways of treating that form of high blood pressure.

The researchers have already confirmed their discovery in human tissue samples and used it to reverse high blood pressure in lab mice.

Our study identifies the cellular mechanisms that increase blood pressure in obesity, and shows that these mechanisms can be targeted for lowering the blood pressure. If we are able to design the appropriate compounds, we might be able to treat hypertension in obese patients."

Swapnil K. Sonkusare, Ph.D., lead researcher, UVA's Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics and UVA's Robert M. Berne Cardiovascular Research Center

Obesity is a growing problem worldwide. The number of people considered obese has nearly tripled since 1975, and with obesity comes greater risk of cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure (hypertension) and stroke, among other health problems.

Small arteries in our body control blood pressure. Scientists have suspected that hypertension in obesity is related to problems in endothelial cells that line these small arteries. The reasons for this, however, have been unclear - until now.

Sonkusare and colleagues found that a protein on the membranes surrounding endothelial cells allows calcium to enter the cells and maintains normal blood pressure. Obesity, it turns out, affects this protein, called TRPV4, within tiny subsections of the cell membrane. Sonkusare calls these faulty subsections "pathological microdomains."

"Under healthy conditions, TRPV4 at these tiny microdomains helps maintain normal blood pressure. We, for the first time, show the sequence of events that lead to a harmful microenvironment for calcium entry through TRPV4," he said. "I think the concept of pathological microdomains is going to be very important not just for obesity-related studies but for studies of other cardiovascular disorders as well."

Obesity, the researchers found, increases the levels of peroxynitrite-making enzymes in the microdomains containing TRPV4. Peroxynitrite silences TRPV4 and lowers calcium entry into the cells. Without the proper amount of calcium, blood pressure goes up.

Sonkusare believes that targeting peroxynitrite or the enzymes that make it could be an effective way to treat and prevent high blood pressure in obesity, without the side effects that would come with trying to target TRPV4 itself.

"People asked me, 'Why don't you use a drug to directly activate TRPV4?' But TRPV4 is present in many other tissues, including brain, muscle and bladder," he explained. "So if you directly activate TRPV4, you will likely get undesirable side effects. The better approach would be to target the specific events that reduce TRPV4 function in obesity."

Sonkusare's discovery also may explain why attempts to use antioxidants to lower high blood pressure have not been very effective in clinical trials. This could be due to the lack of specificity of these antioxidants, he said. "We, for the first time, identify peroxynitrite as the precise oxidant molecule that increases blood pressure in obesity. The next step would be to design drugs that specifically target peroxynitrite and provide therapeutic benefit."

The discovery was made possible by innovative techniques developed in Sonkusare's lab. Researchers in his lab can visualize the calcium entry through TRPV4 in real time and use tools that enable the studies of microdomains. "Historically, researchers have studied larger blood vessels that don't control blood pressure," Sonkusare said. "Because of our unique techniques, we are able to study the microdomains in very small arteries that control the blood pressure. So our technical ability allows us to obtain these unique insights."

Sonkusare and his colleagues have described their discovery in the scientific journal Circulation. The research team consisted of Matteo Ottolini, Kwangseok Hong, Eric L. Cope, Zdravka Daneva, Leon J. DeLalio, Jennifer D. Sokolowski, Corina Marziano, Nhiem Y. Nguyen, Joachim Altschmied, Judith Haendeler, Scott R. Johnstone, Mohammad Y. Kalani, Min S. Park, Rakesh P. Patel, Wolfgang Liedtke, Brant E. Isakson and Sonkusare.

Source:

Journal reference:

Ottolini, M., et al. (2020) Local Peroxynitrite Impairs Endothelial TRPV4 Channels and Elevates Blood Pressure in Obesity. Circulation. doi.org/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.119.043385.

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Genetics

Dr. Philip Leder, Harvard researcher who illuminated the role of genetics in cancer, dies at 85 – The Boston Globe

March 10, 2020 medical

Dr. Leder, who more than 30 years ago became a co-holder of the first US patent on an animal, the OncoMouse, was 85 when he died Feb. 2 in his home in the Brookline part of Chestnut Hill of complications from Parkinsons disease.

In a tribute posted on a National Institutes of Health website, Dr. Michael M. Gottesman said Dr. Leder was among the worlds most accomplished molecular geneticists.

During Dr. Leders postdoctoral studies at the NIH in the early 1960s, he was recruited by Nirenberg to work on untangling the genetic code.

Their experiments definitively elucidated the triplet nature of the genetic code and culminated in its full deciphering helped set the stage for the revolution in molecular genetic research that Phil himself would continue to lead for the next three decades, wrote Gottesman, who is the NIHs deputy director for Intramural Research and chief of the Laboratory of Cell Biology at the Center for Cancer Research of the National Cancer Institute.

In a eulogy at Dr. Leders funeral, Dr. David Livingston, a Harvard geneticist, said he was brilliant, bold, very good-humored, and blessed with exceptional scientific insight and creativity.

Livingston, who had been Dr. Leders second research fellow at the NIH, added that early on, it became readily apparent that a natural eloquence infused his oral and written scientific discourse.

The groundbreaking research Dr. Leder and Nirenberg conducted came about in part because of the looming prospect of military service. Instead, he volunteered to serve in the US Public Health Service.

I got drafted, so I applied for a position in the Public Health Service, which supplied physicians and scientists to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Dr. Leder said in a 2012 interview with a publication of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. A friend at NIH told me that I ought to meet Marshall Nirenberg because he was doing interesting experiments with the genetic code. Frankly, I didnt know anything about the genetic code. But I went to see Marshall, and he explained to me what he was doing and its importance.

Their research was in competition with work in another laboratory run by Severo Ochoa, a Nobel Prize-winner, and there was a mad race to the finish, Dr. Leder recalled.

I couldnt sleep for days at a time because of the excitement! I must admit it was very competitive; theres no question about that, he added. I would go to bed thinking about the next days experiments and then jump out of bed in the morning and rush to the laboratory. I stayed late at night. It was a lot of work but the intellectual excitement was enormous.

After about 18 years, Dr. Leder left the NIH at the outset of the 1980s to become founding chairman of Harvard Medical Schools department of genetics, where he stayed until 2008.

Working with Timothy Stewart in 1988, he was awarded the first patent on the OncoMouse, an animal genetically engineered to have a predisposition for cancer, which revolutionized the study and treatment of the disease, George Q. Daley, dean of the faculty of medicine at Harvard, said in a statement. Additionally, Phils research into Burkitts lymphoma was instrumental to understanding the origin of tumors with antibody-producing cells.

Dr. Leders many honors included the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research; the Heineken Prize from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences; the US National Medal of Science; and the William Allan Medal from the American Society of Human Genetics.

For his many accomplishments, he was extremely modest. He really didnt like to talk about himself much, said his son Ben of Westwood. What he loved about science was the actual work, and thats what really motivated him.

Scientists such as Livingston, who worked with Dr. Leder early in their own careers, considered him a key mentor.

I shall miss Phil forever, Livingston said in his eulogy. Indeed, only rarely has a week passed when I havent thought of him. If the past is any prologue, my abiding hope will be that, when faced with a particularly potent scientific challenge, some of his mentoring magic will spontaneously take hold and point me in one of those special, Phil Leder-like directions.

Although Dr. Leders accomplishments were lasting, he began focusing more on family and subsequent generations as he neared and then entered his retirement years.

What a wonderful ride it has been, he wrote in 2001 for an anniversary report of his Harvard class. But I now see more clearly than ever before that whatever modest gift of knowledge my colleagues and I have been able to turn over to posterity, it has been poor by comparison to the thrill of seeing our grandchildren walk off into the future.

Born in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 19, 1934, Philip Leder grew up in Washington and in Arlington, Va., the only child of George Leder and Jacqueline Burke.

Dr. Leder graduated from Western High School in Washington and went to Harvard, from which he received a bachelors degree in 1956. He graduated from Harvard Medical School four years later.

In 1959, he married Aya Brudner. They had three children and worked together on research.

I continue to collaborate with my wife, Aya, in the remarkable field of molecular genetics, he wrote for the 40th anniversary report of his Harvard class. Lately, however, we find ourselves occasionally sneaking off to New Hampshire, where we have a second home, a canoe, snowshoes, and lots of opportunity to observe nature in real time.

A service has been held for Dr. Leder, who in addition to his wife, Aya, and son, Ben, leaves a daughter, Micki of Washington, D.C.; another son, Ethan of Bethesda, Md.; and eight grandchildren.

Ive discovered that great joy comes from grandchildren, Dr. Leder wrote 50 years after graduating from Harvard College.

Eight grandchildren, he added, can easily shrink a fairly successful career down to its appropriate proportions. In the next few years Ill retire from a life in genetics, which Ive loved, from the genetic code to the human genome. But I wont retire from those grandchildren, and I suspect that many of you feel exactly the same way.

Bryan Marquard can be reached at bryan.marquard@globe.com.

Genetics

Rapid genetic testing becomes available to Calgary medical community – CTV News

March 10, 2020 medical

CALGARY -- When Madden Ellis Garraway was just under two-years-old, he became very sick.

His skin was so dry it bled and he couldnt hold down food, causing his weight dropped to within ounces of his birth weight of seven pounds, six ounces.

Doctors struggled to figure out what was wrong.

We had a large list of things that we were thinking of, and our immunology team and my colleagues who are working with Madden were having trouble arriving at the right one," said Dr. Francois Bernier, head of the Department of Medical Genetics and a professor in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Calgary's Cumming School of Medicine.

"In fact, we made some attempts to arrive at a diagnosis but we're still unsure. It took a while.

Doctors often struggle with diagnosing unusual health issues, especially those that may require genetic testing.

They often must rely on genome sequencing tests to determine the root cause of a disease and until now, large-scale genome sequencing tests were often sent to labs in the United States for analysis.

Bernier calls it "the diagnostic odyssey," a long, difficult, journey for families waiting while cliniciansfigure out what is causing the underlying health issues.

Madden Garraway in hospital at the age of two. (Photo courtesy the Garraway family)

Maddens family can attest to that.

It was months of waiting, wondering and worrying before Madden's blood was sent to a U.S. lab for genome analysis, where it was learned he suffered from a rare genetic condition called immune dysregulation polyendocrinopathy enteropathy X-linked (IPEX) syndrome.

IPEX is a rare genetic disorder that can be life threatening.

"If we could have learned about that instantly, or within the several weeks that we can do now, that will save a lot of time," said Maddens father, Patrick Garraway.

"We could have got on with his bone marrow transplant sooner."

Madden received a bone marrow transplant from his sister. Now five-years-old, the playful youngster has made a full recovery and no longer requires medication.

"There are so many families waiting for answers to serious medical conditions," said Bernier.

"Access to gene sequencing early in the medical journey can pinpoint the best treatment approaches and therapies to target the illness."

Madden Garraway today at the age of five. (Photo courtesy the Garraway family)

A new partnership struck between the University of Calgary, University of Alberta, and Alberta Precision Laboratorieswill help families and medical professionalsanswer to those diagnostic puzzles sooner.

The partnership is funded by Genome Canada, the Alberta Childrens Hospital Foundation, and other partners. Four other centres in Canada are also undertaking similar programs through Genome Canadas funding, one in B.C., two in Ontario and one in Quebec.

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Genetics

Scientists create new tool to study the genetic underpinnings of brain disorders – The Medical News

March 10, 2020 medical

Scientists at the UNC School of Medicine and colleagues created a new computational tool called H-MAGMA to study the genetic underpinnings of nine brain disorders, including the identification of new genes associated with each disorder.

The research, published in Nature Neuroscience, revealed that genes associated with psychiatric disorders are typically expressed early in life, highlighting the likelihood of this early period of life as critical in the development of psychiatric illnesses. The researchers also discovered that neurodegenerative disorder-associated genes are expressed later in life. Lastly, the scientists linked these disorder-associated genes to specific brain cell types.

By using H-MAGMA, we were able to link non-coding variants to their target genes, a challenge that had previously limited scientists' ability to derive biologically meaningful hypotheses from genome-wide association studies of brain disorders. Additionally, we uncovered important biology underlying the genetics of brain disorders, and we think these molecular mechanisms could serve as potential targets for treatment."

Hyejung Won, PhD, study senior author, assistant professor of genetics at the UNC School of Medicine and member of the UNC Neuroscience Center

Brain disorders such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease are among the most burdensome disorders worldwide. But there are few treatment options, largely due to our limited understanding of their genetics and neurobiological mechanisms. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have revolutionized our understanding of the genetic architecture related to many health conditions, including brain-related disorders. GWAS is a technique that allows researchers to compare genetic sequences of individuals with a particular trait - such as a disorder - to control subjects. Researchers do this by analyzing the genetic sequences of thousands of people.

"To date, we know of hundreds of genomic regions associated with a person's risk of developing a disorder," Won said. "However, understanding how those genetic variants impact health remained a challenge because the majority of the variants are located in regions of the genome that do not make proteins. They are called non-coding genetic variants. Thus, their specific roles have not been clearly defined."

Prior research suggested that while non-coding variants might not directly encode proteins, they can interact with and regulate gene expression. That is, these variants help regulate how genes create proteins, even though these variants do not directly lead to - or code for - the creation of proteins.

"Given the importance of non-coding variants, and that they make up a large proportion of GWAS findings, we sought to link them to the genes they interact with, using a map of chromatin interaction in the human brain," Won said. Chromatin is the tightly packed structure of DNA and proteins inside cells, folded in the nucleus in a way to maintain normal human health.

Won and colleagues used this map to identify genes and biological principles underlying nine different brain disorders, including psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia, autism, depression, and bipolar disorder; and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and multiple sclerosis (MS).

Using the computational tool H-MAGMA, Won and colleagues could link non-coding variants to their interacting genes - the genes already implicated in previous GWAS findings.

Another important question in brain disorders is to identify cellular etiology - the cells involved in the root cause of disease. This is especially critical as the brain is a complex organ with many different cell types that may act differently in response to treatment. In the attempt of finding critical cell types for each brain disorder, the researchers found that genes associated with psychiatric disorders are highly expressed in glutamatergic neurons, whereas genes associated with neurodegenerative disorders are highly expressed in glia, further demonstrating how the two disorder clusters diverge from each other.

"Moreover, we classified biological processes central to the disorders," Won said. "From this analysis, we found that the generation of new brain cells, transcriptional regulation, and immune response as being essential to many brain disorders."

Won and colleagues also generated a list of shared genes across psychiatric disorders to describe common biological principles that link psychiatric disorders.

"Amongst the shared genes, we once again identified the brain's early developmental process as being critical and upper layer neurons as being the fundamental cell-types involved," Won said "We unveiled the molecular mechanism that underscores how one gene can affect two or more psychiatric diseases."

H-MAGMA is publicly available so that the tool can be widely applicable and available to the genetics and neuroscience community to help expand research, with the ultimate goal of helping people who suffer with brain-related conditions.

Source:

Journal reference:

Sey, N.Y.A., et al. (2020) A computational tool (H-MAGMA) for improved prediction of brain-disorder risk genes by incorporating brain chromatin interaction profiles. Nature Neuroscience. doi.org/10.1038/s41593-020-0603-0.

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Genetics

March: Predicting educational achievement | News and features – University of Bristol

March 10, 2020 medical

Pupils' genetic data do not predict their educational outcomes with sufficient accuracy and shouldnt be used to design a genetically personalised curriculum or tailor teaching, according to a new University of Bristol study. The findings, which compared the genetic scores of 3,500 pupils with their exam results, are published in the journal eLife today [10 March].

Despite some claims that differences in pupils' genetic data could be used to 'personalise' their education or identify those who are likely to struggle or thrive at school, few studies have investigated how accurately genetic measures known as polygenic scores (which combine information from all genetic material across the entire genome) can predict future educational performance better than other measures of student aptitude.

To measure whether genetic data could predict a pupils achievement, researchers from the Bristol Medical School and the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit took genetic and educational data from 3,500 children in Bristols Children of the 90s study. They compared pupils polygenic scores with their educational exam results at ages 7, 11, 14 and 16.

Their analysis showed that while the genetic scores modestly predicted educational achievement at each age, these predictions were little better than using standard information known to predict educational outcomes, such as achievement at younger ages, parents educational attainment or family socioeconomic position.

Dr Tim Morris, the studys lead author and Senior Researcher Associate from Bristol Medical School, said: Our analysis shows that some pupils with a low polygenic score are very high performers at age 16. Some of those who would be predicted from their genes to be in the bottom 5% are actually in the top 5% of performers. This contradicts the notion that it is possible to accurately predict how well any one child will perform in education from their DNA.

At the population level, researchers found that children with higher polygenic scores, on average, had higher exam scores than those with lower polygenic scores. They add that polygenic scores can be informative for identifying group level differences, but they currently have no practical use for predicting individual educational performance or for personalised education.

Dr Morris added: Educational achievement is incredibly complex and influenced by a large range of factors including parental characteristics, family environment, personality, intelligence, genetics, teachers, peers and schools, and - often overlooked - chance or random events. This complexity will make it perhaps irresolvably difficult to accurately predict how well any one pupil will do from their DNA.

The best piece of information we currently have for predicting how well a pupil will perform is how well they did in school earlier in childhood. Where we don't know this, such as at the start of schooling, we can make better predictions about a pupils future educational performance by knowing how educated their parents are than by knowing their DNA.

The researchers conclude that genes are insufficient for reliably predicting educational achievement at an individual level. The study was funded by the Economic & Social Research Council [ESRC], the Medical Research Council [MRC] and the Wellcome Trust.

Paper

Can education be personalised using pupils genetic data? by Tim T Morris, Neil M Davies, and George Davey Smith in eLife

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March: Predicting educational achievement | News and features - University of Bristol

Anatomy

The Human Vagina and Other Female Anatomy – dummies

March 10, 2020 medical

By Sabine Walter, Pierre A. Lehu

Understanding womens sexual (or reproductive) organs such as the vagina, uterus, and vulva is as integral to sex as understanding the penis. Demystifying female anatomy is key to good sexual functioning, whether youre a mature, experienced adult or looking to learn about womens sexual organs for the first time.

What makes women different from men is that much of our sexual apparatus is on the inside most notably, the vagina. The vagina itself is a hollow, muscular tube that extends from the external opening at the vestibule all the way to the cervix.

The walls of the vagina have several layers: the mucosa, which secretes various fluids; a muscular layer; and connective tissue. Beneath the vagina, on the pelvic floor, are other muscles that are responsible for keeping the vagina elevated, tight, and firm.

During intercourse, the vagina stretches to accommodate the penis. It also becomes lubricated, or slippery, by the passage of fluids through the vaginal walls. This fluid has another function besides making it easier for the penis to slide in and out of the vagina. It also changes the chemical nature of the vagina, making it more alkaline and less acidic an environment that proves more hospitable to sperm.

The cervix, which is the entrance to the uterus, produces a special mucus that changes according to the womans menstrual cycle the monthly process of releasing eggs in preparation for possible pregnancy. Around ovulation, the mucus is abundant, clear, watery, and welcoming to sperm. After ovulation, it is thick, cloudy, sticky, and nearly impenetrable to sperm.

The uterus (or womb) has an inner cavity lined by a tissue called the endometrium, which develops and sheds regularly as part of the menstrual cycle. Menstruation occurs in response to ovarian hormones. The uterus is where the baby develops.

The ovaries (where eggs are stored and released, usually one each month) connect to the uterus via the fallopian tubes. A woman is born with 200,000 eggs, but by the time she reaches puberty, that number has dwindled to 400 or so.

The ovaries also release the female sex hormones, estrogen and progesterone. These hormones trigger the processes needed to create a baby. As far as the role that estrogen and progesterone play in a womans sexual desire, the evidence seems to tilt away from their having much of a role. Women also produce the male sex hormone, testosterone, and this may play somewhat of a role, but the evidence is not conclusive.

The part of the female genitals that you can see from the outside of the body is called the vulva, which lies between the mons pubis and the anus. Its various components are labeled here:

Within the vulvas lips are the clitoris (a womans most sensitive spot), the urethra (from which urine is passed), and the vestibule (the actual entrance to the vagina, covered by a membrane called the hymen), all labeled in the following image.

When a woman is aroused, the vestibular bulbs, which lie underneath the labia minora (inner lips), swell with blood and become engorged, somewhat like a penis which only makes sense, because theyre made from the same spongy tissue as the penis. The clitoris (the pea-sized principal organ of female pleasure) also swells during sexual excitement.

Not all vulvas look alike, and you certainly shouldnt be ashamed of the way your vulva looks like.

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Anatomy

A million-dollar gift shines a spotlight on the Schneck Anatomy Lab – Temple University News

March 10, 2020 medical

The right class inspires you for a lifetime. Thats how S. Jay Hirsh, MED 70, feels. Its why he donated $1 million to the Schneck Gross Anatomy Lab at the Lewis Katz School of Medicinea gift to the school that helped shape his career as a doctor.

His donation will create the S. Jay Hirsh, MD Endowed Anatomy Lab Fund, which will help ensure students in the lab always have access to the most sophisticated environment and tools for teaching and learning.

Named in honor of Carson D. Schneck, MED 59, 65, who taught at the Katz School of Medicine for five decades, the Gross Anatomy Labgross in this sense means largeis home to the first course medical students take at Temple and serves as their introduction to medical school as a whole.

Every day, for seven weeks, first-year students work their way across the human body in stages, from the limbs to body cavities to the head, dissecting specific regions one at a time.

There are no lectures. Instead, professors lead conferences in which students discuss medical cases that help put the anatomy they have studied into a clinical context.

Popoff teaches students in the lab. (Photo by Ryan S. Brandenberg)

We teach an anatomy course here that is really taught strictly from the basis of clinical correlation, said Steven N. Popoff, the John Franklin Huber Chair of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the Katz School of Medicine, who teaches in the lab.

Clinical correlation is an approach that encourages students to make diagnoses based on a combination of physical examinations, clinical findings, medical history and imaging results. Students dissect the head and neck, for example, then discuss diseases or injuries which affect the function of specific cranial nerves.

Theyre not just memorizing structure without having any context to put it in, Popoff said. Theyre learning anatomy thats then put into some form of clinical context.

Students receive a study guide and dissection manual developed by Temples faculty, and electronic copies of the Schneck Notes: More than 400 pages, written mostly by Schneck, that focus on the clinical relevance of the anatomy they study.

They are also taught how to look at anything from a simple X-ray to an MRI scan, becoming familiar with the imaging technology they will use as practicing doctors.

With imaging and computer programs an increasingly important part of teaching anatomy, Hirshs gift will support the labs investments in new technology and ensure its always ready to serve the next generation of students.

For a first course, Popoff said, [the lab] certainly gives them a real taste of medical school that sets it apart from previous educational experiences they have had.

Students consult electronic copies of their study guides and dissection manuals as they work. (Photo by Ryan S. Brandenberg)

Besides being their first class, the lab is also the first contact most students have with cadavers. I know a lot of students are timid at firstI definitely wasto pick up a scalpel and make that first incision, said Harrison Davis, a first-year medical student.

Theyre worried they might harm the body in front of them, even though the person isnt alive.

Not everybody wants to be a surgeon. Some people really love it. Every day they load the scalpel with a blade and they get right to it. And other people, thats not their thing, Davis said. A lot of students have to go past their comfort zone.

The cadaver is your first patient, said Anne Coyle, a second year. Working on one in the lab encourages you to figure out how to learn and get what you need from them and also make sure to respect who they are or were.

For Coyle, her hands-on experience in the lab was the turning point for her deciding to become a surgeon. Everything was so tangible, she said. The things in anatomy are things that Ill never forget learning.

The lab also changes the way students see the human body, a biological wonder we often take for granted.

Take the heart. Its pumping every single second of your life. But then youre actually seeing it in a persons body and holding it, Coyle said. For me it just takes it to a whole other level of connection.

No two bodies are completely alike. Every cadaver is different. Every persons anatomy is different, said Justin Ly, also a second-year student. They all have similar structures, but how they look on different body types is completely different.

For some medical students, anatomy class is a rite of passage. (Photo by Ryan S. Brandenberg)

In their fourth year, students can choose to go back into the lab for a refresher on what theyve learned and to specialize in the anatomy that interests them.

Everything else that you do in medical school, I think theres really not many instances where you dont think back to the organs in the body, or just the anatomy, said Anthony Coppola, a fourth year.

Its almost like a rite of passage, he said. When youre doing anatomy you feel like you truly are a medical student because youre doing something so different, something that not many students are privileged to get to do.

Working in the lab taught Hirsh a great deal besides anatomy. It taught me that I was now part of a group of very special men and women who were on a long journey to becoming a doctor, he said. It taught me companionship. It taught me family values, and it taught me to respect the body that we were working on.

He remembers all his teachers fondly, but Schneck, who had just begun his teaching career when Hirsh met him, stood out. He was an extremely brilliant gentleman who loved his work, Hirsh said. He knew how to teach, he knew what to teach. And he was like an encyclopedia.

Hirsh had wanted to make a significant gift to the Katz School of Medicine for a long time. It wasnt something new. It was something I always wanted to do, he said. Because Temple, this institution was the first institution that really made me believe that I was part of their family.

Thats something that got me through medical school, being, feeling like I was part of that place. It meant so much to me.

Make a gift to support the excellent medical education, research and clinical care at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine by visiting: giving.temple.edu/givetomed.

Edirin Oputu

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Anatomy

Camilla Luddington announces pregnancy, but will ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ write it in? – Page Six

March 10, 2020 medical

Greys Anatomy vet Camilla Luddington announced on Monday that she is pregnant with her second child which, if the ABC serial were to write it in, sure would throw soon-to-be-ex husband Alex a curve ball!

Stemming from original cast member Justin Chambers abrupt parting of ways with Greys, the March 5 episode revealed via a series of handwritten letters from the MIA doc that characters read to themselves on-screen that he had reconnected with former love Izzie and was now living with her in Kansas, along with their 5-year-old twins, Eli and Alexis.

Alex wrote to his wife Jo that it felt like no time had passed when he reconnected with Izzie after years of silence. And if it had just been a case of him missing his first wife, thatd be one thing. But shed had his kids, via the eggs Alex had fertilized back when Izzie was fighting cancer. I need to give these kids the family you and I never had, he told Jo. When I told you I loved you, I meant it, but Izzie has our kids. Ergo, the enclosed, signed divorce papers. #Ouch #StillTooSoon

As entertaining as it might be to speculate that Greys will write in Luddingtons second pregnancy (after shooting around her first one, during Season 13), and thus give birth to a bouncing bundle of dramatic irony, the fact is that the show has kept hidden the actress pregnancy for months already, Luddington revealed. So it would appear that ship has sailed?

Luddington and her husband, Matthew Alan, have a daughter, Hayden, who turns 3 in April.

Anatomy

‘Gale-force wind’ and a wipe-out: The anatomy of spring training’s goofiest play – The Athletic

March 10, 2020 medical

BRADENTON, Fla. Youve seen it, right? If youre here, odds are good that youve seen it.

Mightve been on TV. Mightve been on Twitter. Mightve been in person and this would gain you admission into a blessed club, populated by the special geniuses of LECOM Park. Welcome.

If you havent, here it is a Very Special Baseball Play, starring Oneil Cruz, Kevin Kramer and Jason Martin on one side, and Chavez Young, Kevin Smith and Patrick Cantwell on the other. Well watch it together, and then well discuss why, exactly, it happened. Well do it together.

Standard, indeed. Cruz hit the baseball. Young chased down the baseball and threw it to Smith. Smith threw the baseball to Cantwell. Cantwell tagged Kramer with the baseball, and then Martin. The aristocrats!

On one hand, its spring training; whats the big deal? On the other hand, its spring training the best...

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'Gale-force wind' and a wipe-out: The anatomy of spring training's goofiest play - The Athletic