Hancock named chair of Integrative Biology, Pharmacology
Dean Giuseppe Colasurdo has announced Dr. John Hancock will be the new chair of the Department of Integrative Biology and Pharmacology, effective Jan. 1.
Hancock, who is a British and Australian citizen, is coming to the Medical School from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, where he is the deputy director of research for the Institute for Molecular Bioscience. He has held that position since January 2006 and also has an adjunct appointment in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Pathology at the University of Queensland School of Medicine. He previously served as chair of the school’s Division of Molecular Cell Biology for three years, and was professor of experimental oncology there for eight years.
He runs a prolific research lab with interest on the roles of Ras proteins in cellular signaling– an area of investigation that he has studied since his graduate years.
“I am very pleased to bring Dr. Hancock on board and am asking him to renew this department, giving him the resources to expand the faculty, purchase needed equipment to further his research here, and expand the educational offerings of the department both at the medical student level and the graduate and postdoctoral level of our program,” Dean Colasurdo said. “Dr. Hancock brings great experience to our school and a highly relevant area of research. I am confident that he will be a strong leader and an outstanding mentor.”
Hancock received his M.B. (bachelor of medicine) B.Chir. (bachelor of surgery) from the University of Cambridge St. Thomas’ Hospital Medical School and his Ph.D. from the University of London . Following his medical and surgical internships as a house physician and a house surgeon, he entered the U.S. equivalent of a two-year medical residency rotation through major London teaching hospitals, obtaining general medical training in cardiology, neurology, hematology, oncology, and intensive care. He then specialized in hematology at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
Prior to his appointment at the University of Queensland in 1995, Hancock was a senior scientist and director of Ras research at Onyx Pharmaceuticals in California.
Dr. Norman Weisbrodt has been the interim chair of the Department of Integrative Biology and Pharmacology since Dr. Ferid Murad stepped down as chair Aug. 31, 2005.
-D. Brown
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McAllen boy recovering from rare condition,thanks to pediatric neurologist’s diagnosis
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Rosendo Robles and Dr. Mary Kay Koenig |
A chance encounter in California in June with a pediatric neurologist from the Medical School turned into the miracle of a lifetime for Mayra Rivera of McAllen.
While sitting at a lunch table at the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation (UMDF) conference with Dr. Mary Kay Koenig, assistant professor of child and adolescent neurology, Rivera shared the story of her son, Rosendo Robles.
Robles had developed normally until he was four months old, when he quit smiling. By the time he was 33 months old, he was not able to walk, talk, swallow or control his eye movements, making it difficult for him to see. He had daily seizures and constant vomiting, despite surgery on his esophagus and stomach. He was placed on a feeding tube and his mom fought for every pound he gained.
Koenig, director of the UT Medical School’s Neurometabolic and Mitochondrial Clinic, realized that Robles had never had a lumbar puncture to check for potentially treatable metabolic diseases that affect the central nervous system.
“There’s a certain set of things you want to look for that are treatable and you want to make sure those are ruled out before you diagnose a child with a mitochondrial disease,” Koenig said. "Rosendo hadn’t had a lumbar puncture to check chemicals in the brain and spinal fluid. It's a standard process for us when a child is this delayed without a clear cause."
The lumbar puncture was performed at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital, where Koenig is a pediatric neurologist. On Aug. 28, Koenig called Rivera with the results that would change her family’s life for the better.
Rosendo has idiopathic cerebral folate deficiency, an extremely rare condition with similar symptoms to mitochondrial disease. But cerebral folate deficiency is treatable. In fact, if caught before a child is 3 years old, there is a good chance that the patient will have a normal life. Rosendo turns 3 years old Nov. 12.
Folate is needed for almost every chemical reaction in the body, including brain formation, Koenig said. Without it, myelin (the substance that forms around nerve fibers) never develops, so the brain cannot tell muscles what to do and development is arrested. Koenig cited a New England Journal of Medicine article co-authored by Dr. Edward V. Quadros, associate professor of medicine and biochemistry at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, which reported that folate-receptor blocking antibodies prevent the transfer of folate from the blood to the cerebral spinal fluid and brain.
Koenig started Robles on daily oral doses of folinic acid on Sept. 1. Already he is smiling, babbling and tolerating his food better, his mom reports. His muscle strength is improving and he has been able to sit up by himself for short periods of time. In the first seven weeks of treatment, he gained three pounds and grew two inches. The seizures have disappeared.
"Before he was diagnosed with the folate deficiency, it was hard for me to get out of bed in the morning," said Rivera, a high school speech teacher who had to stop working in order to care of her ailing son. "Now I wake up and I wonder what he's going to do next. This changes everything. You look at life differently."
Meanwhile, Rivera continues to support parents of children with mitochondrial disease, caused by damage to the mitochondria – which are small, energy-producing structures that serve as cells’ “power plants,” according to the National Institutes of Health. Nerve cells in the brain and muscles require a lot of energy and so are particularly damaged by mitochondrial disease. Many children with the condition do not live into adolescence. It affects 1 in 5,000 babies.
Koenig, who serves on the board of the Houston chapter of the UMDF, is conducting research into the slowing of mitochondrial disease through dietary changes with funding from the Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences.
Folate deficiency is much rarer than mitochondrial disease, having been diagnosed in only about 100 children worldwide.
“There’s every reason to be hopeful,” Koenig said about Robles’ future. “I expect him to be able to walk and talk and feed himself and take care of himself. His mom saved his life. I can’t wait to see him.”
Robles will return for a follow-up appointment and lumbar puncture at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital to see how much folate has entered Rosendo’s cerebral spinal fluid and make any needed medication adjustments.
“He has a college account. We never gave that up,” Rivera said. “And I had a hospital crib, but I never set it up. In the back of my head, I had this dream of him running.”
-D. Mann Lake
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Kaplan Elected AAAS Fellow
Samuel Kaplan, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, has been elected a Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world largest general scientific society and the publisher of the journal, Science. This honor is bestowed on AAAS members by their peers.
He is the only 2007 AAAS Fellow from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, joining two named from The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
"This is an outstanding and well-deserved recognition for Dr. Kaplan and his extraordinary abilities as a scientist and teacher. His election as an AAAS Fellow also brings great honor to our university,” said James T. Willerson, president of the UT Health Science Center at Houston. “We are very grateful that Dr. Kaplan is among us and makes such valuable contributions to the greatness of this institution."
Kaplan was elected for his outstanding fundamental research in bacterial photosynthesis and for sustained and effective leadership in the profession of microbiology. His laboratory studies the mechanisms through which oxygen and light control gene expression as applied to the photosynthetic bacterium, Rhodobacter sphaeroides.
“Virtually all living systems are exposed to these ubiquitous environmental elements and we know that many disease states – from oxidative damage of the cellular DNA, as well as the inability to repair ultraviolet-induced DNA damage – are all too common in human populations,” Kaplan said.
“Because this bacterium most closely resembles the mammalian mitochondrion, the ‘powerplant’ of the mammalian cell, we are also able to learn much about the mitochondrion and its function,” he said. “The study of bacteria has proven instrumental in advancing our understanding of cellular structure and function.”
Kaplan has served as chairof the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at the Medical School for almost 20 years, with prior service at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Oxford University in England and Case Western Reserve University. Two students who received their doctorates under Kaplan are now members of the National Academy of Sciences and a third earned the Presidential Medal of Science & Technology.
Kaplan is currently the chair of the Publications Board of the American Society for Microbiology (ASM), which publishes 11 journals and 25 books per year. He referees article submissions for the Journal of Biological Chemistry and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He has authored or co-authored more than 230 scholarly articles and has several more due out this year alone.
Kaplan has a doctorate in cell biology and molecular genetics from the University of California – San Diego, a master’s of science from Yale University and bachelor’s of science from Cornell University. He had a postdoctoral fellowship at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. He is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps.
This year, 471 members have been awarded this honor by the AAAS for their efforts to advance science or its applications. They will be recognized at the Fellows Forum at the AAAS annual meeting in Boston Feb. 16.
-R. Cahill
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