Boston University Medical Campus

Osamu Shimomura stood quietly in front of a Medical Campus audience yesterday, slender shoulders slouched forward, eyes gazing down.

Osamu Shimomura, a School of Medicine professor emeritus of physiology and one of the winners of the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2008, returned to MED to give his Nobel lecture, Discovery of Green Fluorescent Protein, GFP: My Nobel Prize Lecture. Photos by Kalman Zabarsky

Beside him, David Atkinson, chairman of the School of Medicine physiology and biophysics department, displayed a gold medallion the size of his palm to the growing crowd: Shimomura’s Nobel Prize in chemistry.

“See that everybody?” Atkinson asked. “That’s the real thing.”

Shimomura, a MED professor emeritus of physiology and a former senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, was one of three winners of the prize in 2008 for his discovery of green fluorescent protein in the jellyfish Aequorea victoria. He shared the $1.4 million award with Martin Chalfie of Columbia University and Roger Y. Tsien of the University of California, San Diego, two researchers who pioneered cellular research techniques using the proteins Shimomura identified.

Shimomura was back at BU to give his Nobel Prize presentation, Discovery of Green Fluorescent Protein, GFP: My Nobel Prize Lecture, before dozens of BU faculty, staff, and students in the auditorium at 670 Albany Street.

President Robert A. Brown introduced Shimomura. Without the researcher’s discovery of “tiny molecular flashlights,” Brown said, many of the experiments performed in laboratories around the world, in fields ranging from biophysical chemistry to ecology and evolution, would not be possible.

All this from a man who saw the horrors that scientific experimentation can bring. At 16, Brown recounted, Shimomura was 15 kilometers from the epicenter of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki at the end of World War II.

Read the whole story by Leslie Friday on BU Today

“Disorder breeds disorder,” read one of the slides that flashed on the screen at the Nov. 18 Public Health Forum, headlined: “Promising Environmental Approaches to Violence, Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention.”

After years of walking the streets of inner-city Baltimore with her team of researchers, the forum’s guest speaker, Debra Furr-Holden, PhD, has seen the clear links between environmental factors, such as blight, liquor stores and noise levels, and rates of violence, alcoholism and drug use.

Debra Furr-Holden

“Opportunities for incivility exist in the community, and can be [affected] by environmental manipulations,” explained Furr-Holden, director of the Drug Investigations, Violence and Environmental Studies (DIVE) Laboratory at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She was invited to speak at the monthly BUSPH forum by the Department of Community Health Sciences.

Furr-Holden described the “block-by-block” approach that has guided her research into how features of the built and social environment are linked with a community’s health. She cited several examples of how particular environmental factors can fuel rates of violence and drug use in urban settings.

In one study, Furr-Holden’s team looked at the location of liquor stores in inner-city Baltimore, mapping those that were located within 300 feet of a school, in violation of state law. The researchers also collected data on crime and drug use in those school communities, vs. others without liquor stores nearby.

The results were compelling, Furr-Holden said: Youths in elementary, middle and high schools located near liquor stores were more likely to be involved with drugs and exposed to violence than those who attended schools without liquor outlets in close proximity. Also, schools within 300 feet of a liquor store were almost 10 times more likely to have had a homicide occur near the school property, have youths who reported carrying weapons, or have higher rates of community drug use.

The findings, which showed that the lack of enforcement of the existing alcohol zoning policy was impacting youth drug and violence exposure, eventually led the Baltimore City Council to step in and propose strengthening zoning enforcement. Eight of the 51 liquor stores within 300 feet of a school have been shut down so far, and “we’re seeking to close all of them,” Furr-Holden said. In addition, a proposal is pending to expand the state zoning regulation from 300 to 750 feet.

Furr-Holden called the liquor-store study one small example of “research to policy to practice — live and in living color.”

Furr-Holden also discussed an ongoing research project that uses biomapping — including GPS units and galvanic skin response sensors – to gauge and impact behavior among participants in a drug-treatment program. Among other study areas, the project is looking at whether there are identifiable environmental factors that impact drug craving and relapse.

Another project, called “Safe Passages to School,” has eight city agencies in Baltimore working together to clean up walking paths to six city schools, so that children do not have to walk past graffiti, trash or other negative environmental elements.

Furr-Holden was a 2006 recipient of the prestigious Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. The award provides her with up to $500,000 each year, over five years, to continue her research into the links between environmental factors and youth’s exposure to drugs and violence.

To pursue the block-by-block approach, Furr-Holden’s team has developed a measurement dubbed “NIfETy” — short for Neighborhood Inventory for Environmental Typology — that looks at factors ranging from the number of alleys in an area, to the types of dwellings, to the number of broken windows.

More on “NIfeTy” is available on the DIVE Laboratory website.

Submitted by Lisa Chedekel

chedekel@bu.edu

A consortium led by the Boston University School of Public Health has been awarded a $1 million federal grant to test and evaluate interventions aimed at reducing the incidence of Clostridium difficile (or “C.diff”) infections, a stubborn bacterial strain that most commonly affects older adults in hospitals and long-term care facilities.

Mari-Lynn Drainoni

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently awarded the grant to BUSPH and two partners – the Montefiore Medical Center in New York and the Greater New York Hospital Association – as part of a larger $17 million initiative to fight health care-associated infections. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has identified reducing C.diff as a priority.

C.diff infections, while rarely life threatening, can cause diarrhea and more serious conditions such as colitis and sepsis.

The consortium plans to assess current rates of C.diff at 10 New York–area hospitals, said Mari-Lynn Drainoni, associate professor of health policy and management at BUSPH, who is overseeing the project. Five of the hospitals will continue with the infection-control practices they already have in place, while the other five will implement new interventions.

Once the results are evaluated, the team hopes to develop a best-practices toolkit and manual to assist healthcare providers nationally in reducing C.diff rates.

“The reason I’m excited about this work is because it’s really practical and can make a difference in people’s lives,” said Drainoni, whose other research work focuses on HIV/AIDS and hepatitis.

C.diff-associated infections occur most often when antibiotic therapy suppresses the normal bacteria in a patient’s colon. Two out of three infected patients in U.S. hospitals in 2005 were elderly.

Interventions recommended to reduce C.diff in healthcare settings include adherence to strict hand-washing guidelines; use of contact precautions, such as gloves and gowns, as well as separating infected patients from the rest of the patient population; environmental equipment cleaning and decontamination; and “antimicrobial stewardship programs,” which restrict the use of antibiotics associated with C.diff and curb unnecessary antibiotic use.

Because C.diff can be caused by over-prescribing of antibiotics, “we plan to look at changing prescribing patterns,” Drainoni said. Other interventions could include strict environmental precautions

Montefiore Medical Center has physicians who are experts on C.diff infections, Drainoni said, while the Greater New York Hospital Association has taken steps in recent years to ramp up its fight against the infections, including prevention training for staff and early identification of the condition among patients.

Drainoni said she expects the study will take about two years to complete. BUSPH will be responsible for overseeing and evaluating the project.

Submitted by Lisa Chedekel

chedekel@bu.edu

American Dental Education Association (ADEA) Associate Executive Director and Director of the ADEA Center for Equity and Diversity Dr. Jeanne C. Sinkford received the 2009 Herbert W. Nickens Award on November 7 at the Association of American Medical College’s (AAMC) annual meeting.

The Herbert W. Nickens Award honors an individual who has made outstanding contributions to promoting justice in medical education and health care and is named for a former vice president of the AAMC. Dr. Sinkford was selected for this prestigious award based on her contributions to the dental and philanthropic communities. Through her ability to leverage human talent and financial resources she has helped realize ADEA ’s mission of delivering oral health care for the improvement of the health of the public.

As an Associate Executive Director and Director of the ADEA Center for Equity and Diversity, her work has provided numerous opportunities for women and underrepresented minorities in dental education through innovative faculty development and pipeline programs that include the ADEA/W.K. Kellogg Access to Dental Careers Program and the ADEA/W.K. Kellogg Minority Dental Faculty Development Program. She is also the creator of the ADEA International Women’s Leadership Conference that will be held for the fourth time in 2010 in Salvador, Brazil.

“Dr. Sinkford is a trailblazer in the health care community who uses her natural ability to see the big picture to enhance lives,” said ADEA President Ronald J. Hunt, DDS in a statement released by ADEA. “Her work has improved the access to oral health care for many, created new paths for students and educators in dental education, and continues to demonstrate the important connection between oral and systemic health. ADEA congratulates her on receiving this prestigious award.”

Dr. Sinkford has been a member of the Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine (GSDM) Dean’s Advisory Board since it’s creation in 2008. Prior to that she was a member of the GSDM Board of Visitors from 1981 to 2008.

“I am honored to have such an accomplished individual on my advisory board,” said Dean Jeffrey Hutter, adding, “Dr. Sinkford brings a unique and much needed perspective to the GSDM Dean’s Advisory Board.”

Dr. Sinkford also has the distinction of being the first female Dean of a United States dental school. She was appointed Dean at Howard University College of Dentistry (HUCD) in 1975 after serving as an Associate Professor and Associate Dean. She had been a member of the faculty since 1958, when she graduated first in her class from HUCD. She was awarded a MA in 1962 and a PhD in 1963 from Northwestern University and completed a residency in Pedodontics in 1964 at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

Wendy K. Mariner, professor of health law, bioethics and human rights at the Boston University School of Public Health has been appointed Edward R. Utley Professor in Health Law at Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH).

Wendy Mariner

Mariner’s nomination to the endowed professorship by BUSPH Dean Robert Meenan was approved by University Provost David Campbell and BU President Robert Brown. She will succeed Professor George J. Annas, chairman of the Department of Health Law, Bioethics and Human Rights, who vacated the Utley chair in May when he was named a William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor at Boston University. Annas was one of the first two BU faculty members appointed to the Warren Professorship.

“Wendy is superbly qualified for the Utley Professorship based on her outstanding accomplishments and her notable contributions to scholarship, teaching, and service in the field of health law,” said Dean Meenan. “It is gratifying as dean to have a faculty member of Wendy’s caliber ready to fill the Utley Professorship that was held so ably since 1982 by George Annas. Not only has she demonstrated the excellence required for appointment to a named professorship at Boston University, her work is exactly suited to the goals of the Utley Chair,” said Meenan. The chair was established by Edward R. Utley as a “memorial” to his own career in the field of legal medicine (health law).

“It is quite an honor, and a lovely surprise, even to be nominated,” said Mariner. “The Utley Professorship represents the highest aspirations in health law scholarship. Professor Annas more than fulfilled those aspirations. It will be a challenge and a joy to pursue further research in this exciting field.”

Mariner is well known and highly regarded across the University. She holds secondary academic appointments as professor of law at the School of Law and as professor of socio-medical sciences and community medicine at the School of Medicine. She directs the JD-MPH dual degree program and co-directs the Regulatory Knowledge and Research Ethics section of the BU Clinical and Translational Science Institute. She currently serves as Chair of the BU Faculty Council and, ex officio, as a BU trustee.

Mariner’s scholarship explores legal principles governing social responsibility and personal responsibility for health and links health law with human rights theory. Her research bridges constitutional, insurance, privacy and tort law to assess when justice requires individual responsibility for health and when it requires societal measures to prevent harm and provide health care. Her early work analyzed no-fault compensation programs around the world to identify a mechanism for providing care to disabled children, and influenced the development of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

Professor Mariner’s recent research concentrates on developing new conceptions of insurance as a mechanism for financing medical care, distributing risk, and changing risk behavior. This work builds on her early insight into the effect of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) on health insurance design and the legal structure for regulating insurance. Faculty and legislators from around the country frequently seek her expertise on ERISA and health insurance reform legislation as a result of her influential analyses.

Her health law research has been published in medical and health policy, as well as law journals. Her textbook, Public Health Law, coauthored with leading scholars George Annas, Boston University School of Public Health; Ken Wing, professor of law at the Seattle University School of Law; and the late Daniel Strouse, a professor of law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, is the standard text in schools of law and public health.

Mariner’s teaching excellence has been recognized by her peers across the country. In 2008, she received the Jay Healey Distinguished Health Law Teacher Award from the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics, which includes in its membership virtually all health law faculty in the United States.

The Partners in Health and Housing Prevention Research Center (PHH-PRC) — a partnership between the BU School of Public Health, the Boston Housing Authority, the Boston Public Health Commission, and the Community Committee for Health Promotion — has been awarded a five-year grant that will allow it to continue innovative programs to improve the health of residents of Boston’s public housing.

Robert Horsburgh

The five-year, $3.5 million award from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will allow the center “to continue building on our collaboration and improving the health of public housing residents,” said Dr. Robert Horsburgh, director of the center and chair and professor of the Department of Epidemiology at BUSPH. “The success of this application reflects the strong partnership and dedicated participation of all four of our partner organizations.”

The center, established in 2001, is one of 35 prevention research centers nationwide that has received funding from the CDC for 2010-2014 for programs aimed at reducing the risk of chronic illnesses in various communities. The PHH-PRC is the only center that focuses exclusively on public housing, engaging residents in activities and research designed to improve their health and reduce health disparities.

The Community Committee for Health Promotion, one of the center’s partners, is composed of public housing residents and community representatives.

Horsburgh said the continued funding will allow the center to move forward with several initiatives, including a study to determine how Resident Health Advocates, who are trained through the center, can best ensure that their fellow public housing residents access care for diseases found during health screenings or enroll in prevention programs for health risks. Dr. Tracy Battaglia, an assistant professor of epidemiology at BUSPH and assistant professor of medicine at the BU School of Medicine, will lead that study. Deborah Bowen, chair and professor of community health sciences at BUSPH, has joined the center as a senior advisor and will assist with the study.

The center recently completed research showing that Resident Health Advocates (RHAs) significantly increased the participation of public housing residents in health screenings. Residents of several Boston public housing developments received health screenings via a mobile van, in an effort to remove transportation and financial barriers to accessing preventive health services.

The center trains a group of residents annually to become RHAs. Graduates are hired as paid interns by the Housing Authority and provide fellow residents with information about local health services and encourage them to access those services.

In addition to expanding the RHA program, the center also plans to continue work on a project called Knowledge is Power (KIP), which trains public housing residents to organize health-education workshops at their developments.

Other projects underway in collaboration with the center include a smoking cessation program for residents, and a study of dental sealants to help prevent cavities in children.

More information on the PHH-PRC is available on the center’s website.

Rhoda M. Alani, MD, has been appointed chair of the Department of Dermatology, Herbert Mescon Chair and professor of dermatology at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and chief of the Department of Dermatology at Boston Medical Center (BMC). She will assume these positions in January 2010.

Rhoda M. Alani, MD

Prior to these appointments, Alani was a faculty member in Oncology, Dermatology, and Molecular Biology and Genetics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she currently serves as Director of The Laboratory of Cutaneous Oncology in the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center. Alani’s research focus is in understanding the molecular basis of melanoma development and progression with the aim of translating her laboratory findings to better prevention, detection, diagnosis, and treatment of melanoma. Alani’s clinical interests are focused on pigmented lesions and melanoma and she is currently Director of the Pigmented Lesion and Melanoma Clinic in Dermatology at Johns Hopkins. She is also actively involved in teaching medical students, graduate students, and dermatology residents and has served as Director of the Dermatology Residency Training Program at Johns Hopkins.

“Dr. Alani is an outstanding academician who has been a leader in research and education, and a outstanding addition to our faculty leadership,” said BUSM Dean Karen Antman, MD, provost of the Boston University Medical Campus.

“Dr. Alani brings a wealth of clinical experience to this role, which will be of great benefit to our patients. We look forward to the leadership she will provide to the department of dermatology and the hospital,” said Elaine Ullian, BMC president and CEO.

Alani received her medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School, where she received the Graduation with Distinction in Research Award. She completed an internship in internal medicine at Yale University School of Medicine, and a residency in dermatology at Harvard Medical School. From 1995 to1997 Alani served as an instructor in dermatology at Harvard Medical School and from 1997 to 1999 as an instructor in dermatology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

She was elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI) in 2005 and currently serves as the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine representative to this organization. She is also a member of the American Academy of Dermatology, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Society for Investigative Dermatology and a Founding member of the Society for Melanoma Research.

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While other cities have adopted bans on alcohol advertising on public transit systems, Boston’s MBTA is allowing youths to be exposed heavily to such ads, some of which are designed to entice young people to drink, a new study by a team of Boston University School of Public Health researchers shows.

Michael Siegel

The study, published online in the November supplement of the American Journal of Public Health, reveals that on a typical weekday, the alcohol advertising exposure among Boston youths, ages 11-18, via MBTA trains is 5.5 times greater than the exposure among this age group that alcohol companies would achieve through a televised Super Bowl commercial. Approximately 9,615 Boston Public School commuters use the transit system daily.

The study, led by Michael Siegel, professor of community health sciences at BUSPH, notes that cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington D.C. have policies that prohibit alcohol ads on public transit systems. Previous studies have shown that alcohol advertising is linked to youth alcohol consumption and that it undermines the alcohol-prevention messages learned in school. The Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth found that people aged 12 to 20 are 96 more times likely to be exposed to an advertisement that promotes alcohol, rather than one that discourages underage drinking.

Cigarette advertisements and ads containing violence and nudity are prohibited by the state-funded MBTA because they are deemed inappropriate.

“By allowing alcohol advertising on the T, the state is not only allowing alcohol companies to bombard our kids with enticing advertisements, it is also allowing these companies to successfully recruit new drinkers among underage youths in the Commonwealth,” Siegel said.

A proposal introduced in January in the Massachusetts House of Representatives by Rep. Martin J. Walsh of the 13th District would ban alcohol advertising on any property owned or operated by the Commonwealth, including the MBTA. Siegel testified before the Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight in September on the importance of legislators acting on this bill.

In the published study, a team of researchers recorded the number of, and nature of, alcohol advertisements in every car of four consecutive trains on each of the four MBTA subway lines: the red, green, orange, and blue lines. The same survey was conducted one month later. In total, the group sampled 142 subway cars, which represents 29 percent of the 246 cars in operation on the four transit lines.

The researchers found a total of 267 alcohol advertisements on the 142 subway cars, or an average of about 2 alcohol ads per car. Based on MBTA ridership statistics, that translates into a total of 1.2 million advertising exposures on a typical weekday. Given the number of Boston Public School students who ride the T, the research team estimated that there are 18,000 advertising exposures on a typical weekday among those youths.

“Parents do not stand a chance in protecting their children against this powerful advertisement campaign designed by alcohol companies and enabled by the state of Massachusetts,” Siegel said.

Besides Siegel, researchers on the study included BU School of Public Health students Justin Nyborn, Siphannay Nhean, and Kimber Wukitsch.

Submitted by Lisa Chedekel

chedekel@bu.edu

On Wednesday, November 18, join Debra Furr-Holden, assistant professor in the Mental Health Department at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, as she presents a talk on “Promising Environmental Approaches to Violence, Alcohol, and Other Drug Prevention.”

Debra Furr-Holden

Her presentation will look at the geographic distribution and determinants of violence, alcohol and other drug problems, and cover new environmental assessment and analytic methods that integrate geographic information system technology with biobehavioral research. Implications for policy and environmental preventive intervention strategies will also be discussed.

Furr-Holden is an epidemiologist by training with expertise in drug and alcohol dependence epidemiology, psychiatric epidemiology, prevention science and psychosocial measurement. In the last 5 years her work has focused largely on developing environmental strategies for violence, alcohol, tobacco and other drug prevention in high-risk urban settings. Furr-Holden also initiated the Drug Investigations, Violence and Environmental Studies Laboratory (The DIVE Studies Lab) in Baltimore, Maryland, which seeks to provide contextual insight on violence and alcohol and other drug exposure among Baltimore city youth.

The BUSPH Public Health Forum is a regular series presented by the School of Public Health. It is free and open to the public

BUSPH Public Health Forum: “Promising Environmental Approaches to Violence, Alcohol, and Other Drug Prevention”

• Speakers: Debra Furr-Holden, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Date: November 18, 2009
• Time: 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
• Location: BUSM Instructional Building, Room L-112

For more information, contact Lizzy Romero, eromero@bu.edu

Students are also welcome to join Dr. Furr-Holden for an informal meet and greet session from 1:00 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. in room R110.