Student Updates
BUGSDM Representatives Accepted into MDS Leadership Institute
Boston University Goldman School of Dental Medicine (BUGSDM) Clinical Associate Professor and Director of Preclinical Remediation Dr. Debra Pan, Megan Ryan DMD 10, and Michael Visser DMD 10 were recently accepted into the Massachusetts Dental Society (MDS) Leadership Institute. The MDS Leadership Institute is designed to empower participating dentists with the necessary tools and training to become effective leaders within organized dentistry, their community, or their practice.
The program is limited to 16 dentists and two dental students. This year, both student spots were filled by BUGSDM representatives.
Visser and Ryan were both excited to participate. "Working with the practicing dentists in the program gives us a chance to learn what it's like to work as a real dentist," said Ryan. "It give us the opportunity to see more about the field than we can learn in school."
Visser added, "It also gives us an opportunity to learn leadership skills that will be useful when working with a team in private practice and as a dentist involved in community organizations."
Participants attend four half-day meetings per year and one evening team building program. At the first meeting in September, participants learned to evaluate their leadership styles and discovered effective ways to lead based on these styles.
"Attending these meeting gives me the skills and tools to become a more effective leader at a state level and a national level," said Dr. Pan.
"This is quite an accomplishment for all three participants," said Dean Jeffrey Hutter. "It's wonderful to see Dr. Pan getting more involved with MDS and it is an honor to have Michael and Megan representing BUGSDM as this year's only student participants. I hope that other members of the BUGSDM community will be inspired by their dedication to leadership and I encourage them to apply for next year's program
Timely Retreat Highlights BU-VA Affiliation
"Bridging Clinical, Teaching, and Scientific Roles: A Career Development Retreat for BUMC-VAMC Faculty," on December 19, 2008, captures the importance of the BU-VA affiliation within the university mission. This day-long event will be held at the School of Medicine in room L-110 of the Instructional Building, 72 East Concord Street.
Successful recent recruitment has brought numbers of young and talented clinicians, educators, and investigators to joint appointments at both Boston University and the Veterans Affairs Boston Health Care System (VABHS). These investigators are poised to contribute in many ways yet missions, goals, and procedures within separate institutions are not always immediately clear. BUMC's Office of Research Administration (ORA) and VABHS' Research Service are working together to offer this event as internal outreach to faculty at both institutions.
VABHS Associate Chief of Staff and BUSM Professor of Psychiatry Dr. Terence M. Keane is a key organizer of the event. "We aim to inform and educate junior and senior and new and not-so-new faculty about their roles and progression in their careers," he explains.
"The Retreat will help faculty to compete academically in an era of fierce competition for NIH funding and decreased foundation support. In this uncertain economic climate, we must facilitate the success of our faculty. The BU-VA medical center model supports the development of translational scientists and staff that support our academic missions," says BUMC Provost and School of Medicine Dean Karen H. Antman. This Retreat follows one held May 8-9 for Psychiatry and Psychology faculty, revealing the need to increase the program's reach campus-wide.
Highlights of the event include, VABHS Chief of Staff Michael E. Charness presenting the clinical and academic mission of VABHS, 6th-ranked nationally in terms of VA research and clinical care dollars in 2007, and BU President Emeritus Aram V. Chobanian discussing academic leadership in a timely talk addressed to the next generation of academic leaders in the audience.
Two panels formatted as conversations with BUMC deans and department chairs, and VABHS department chiefs, will provide practical insight into career development at all levels--scientist, scientist-educator, clinician scientist, and clinician-educator--while a third, "Balancing Life and Career" examines the juggling act.
Concluding the day, breakout sessions on the clinician educator career trajectory and the research administration process will answer questions that new investigators, and young clinicians in and out of the funding milieu, may have as they begin their career journey.
For additional information on the Retreat program and registration go to https://www.bumc.bu.edu/ora/bu-vabhsnews/. Registration deadline is December 12.
BUSM Emeritus Professor Receives Nobel Prize in Chemistry
It took more than 30 years for Osamu Shimomura to realize that his research on jellyfish would revolutionize the world of biology and another 14 for the Nobel Prize committee to recognize his contribution. Yesterday, after learning that his discovery of luminescent proteins in jellyfish had won this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry, he told reporters what he learned from the experience.
"If you find an interesting subject, go study it," he says. "Don't stop. There is difficulty in any research - don't give up until you overcome that."
Shimomura, a School of Medicine emeritus professor of physiology and a senior scientist emeritus at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., was one of three winners of this year's chemistry prize. The other winners were Martin Chalfie of Columbia University and Roger Y. Tsien of the University of California, San Diego, both recognized for pioneering cellular research techniques that use the proteins Shimomura identified. The three will share the $1.4 million prize, which is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Shimomura is credited with the discovery of green fluorescent protein, or GFP, which he observed in 1962 in the jellyfish Aequorea victoria, found off the west coast of North America. James Head, a MED professor of physiology and biophysics, recalls Shimomura's stories of collecting the jellyfish - Shimomura began his research with 10,000 specimens - in Washington state.
"He and his wife used to spend summers at Friday Harbor and catch bucket after bucket of jellyfish," says Head, who collaborated with Shimomura on research into the behaviors and uses of aequorin, another fluorescent protein. "In those early days, he would purify the protein directly from the jellyfish, getting small amounts of protein from bucketfuls."
But although Shimomura pursued his studies of GFP for years, he said yesterday that he didn't realize the potential applications of his work until 1994, when Chalfie's research emerged. In an organism, GFP can be fused to proteins of interest to scientists, with minor effects on the organism's behavior. Researchers can then observe the locations and movements of the studied proteins by monitoring the GFP, which remains fluorescent.
"This protein has become one of the most important tools used in contemporary bioscience," according to yesterday's announcement of the prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. "With the aid of GFP, researchers have developed ways to watch processes that were previously invisible, such as the development of nerve cells in the brain or how cancer cells spread."
"These discoveries were seminal and decades ahead of their time," says Gary Borisy, director and chief executive officer of the Marine Biological Laboratory. "They really have ushered in a revolution in cell biology."
Since then, newer techniques have emerged, such as Tsien's research into GFP mutations that create fluorescence in various colors, which allows researchers to track different cellular processes in one organism.
"Researchers can follow the fate of various cells with the help of GFP: nerve cell damage during Alzheimer's disease or how insulin-producing beta cells are created in the pancreas of a growing embryo," reads the prize announcement. "In one spectacular experiment, researchers succeeded in tagging different nerve cells in the brain of a mouse with a kaleidoscope of colors."
Shimomura, who earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry at Nagoya University in 1960 and began studying bioluminescence there before coming to America and joining a research team at Princeton University, says he never expected his work to change the world of cell biology.
"My subject was just discovery of a product," he says. "I'm surprised. And I'm happy."
Submitted by BU Today's Jessica Ullian.