Center For Clinical And Translational Sciences Celebrates New Home

Dan Wolterman, president and CEO of Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, Dr. Frank Arnett, executive director of the CCTS; Dr. John Mendelsohn, president of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center; and Dr. James Willerson, president of the UT Health Science Center; mark the opening of the CCTS’ new space in the UT Professional Building.

The Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences (CCTS), a collaboration among The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, and the Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, celebrated the grand opening of its new 16,721 square-foot offices on the 11th floor of The University of Texas Professional Building April 11.

The CCTS is one of the original 12 such centers funded by the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSAs) in 2006 and provides the resources and advice to move scientific findings into clinical practice faster, to the benefit of patients, their families, and the community.

“We are now truly on our way to revolutionizing health care,” said Dr. James T. Willerson, president of the health science center and president-elect of Texas Heart Institute. “One young researcher observed of CCTS, ‘It helped me shave years off my work.’”

The CCTS staff helps investigators with the design and conduct of clinical trials and other research studies and includes biostatisticians, epidemiologists, ethicists, clinical trials managers, bioinformaticists, educators, and other research specialists. “It's one-stop shopping. You can come up here and meet with all those different people and speed your application along,” said Dr. Frank Arnett, executive director of the CCTS, professor of internal medicine, and the Elizabeth Bidgood Chair in Rheumatology.

“When you take three exemplary institutions and focus on a vision, you can do outstanding things,” said Dan Wolterman, president and CEO of Memorial Hermann Healthcare System. “Memorial Hermann is exceptionally proud to be in this collaborative partnership.”

“There are 125 medical schools in the country, and every one of them wants a center like this,” said Dr. John Mendelsohn, president of M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. “We are delighted to be partnering with the UT Health Science Center in this important research and educational center, and we are proud to bring to it the nation’s largest and most successful cancer clinical trials program.”

“The CCTS is a massive undertaking that is building on the foundation of a number of important pre-existing educational and clinical research programs at M. D. Anderson and is making rapid strides in bridging research across the entire University of Texas Health Science Center,” said Dr. Razelle Kurzrock, co-director of the CCTS for Education and Training and professor and chair of M. D. Anderson’s Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics.

The CCTS offices are on the 11th floor of the UT Professional Building at 6410 Fannin, and the phone number is 713-500-7924. More information is online at http://ccts.uth.tmc.edu

-R. Cahill

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MedKids Gives Back to Local Schools

Felicity Kelly, a second-year medical student, poses with four Lockhart Elementary students after handing out bike helmets as part of the Texas Medical Association Hard Hats for Little Heads program.

A student volunteer group, MedKids, works to educate local elementary school students and increase their interest in science and medicine in hopes of creating a more diversified pool of medical school applicants. 

The program was started in 2007 by Felicity Kelly and Kathryn Palumbo, both second-year medical students. MedKids is supported and funded by The John P. McGovern, M.D. Center for Health, Humanities, and the Human Spirit.

“The mission of the program is to excite students at an early age about science so that hopefully they’ll think about a career in science later,” Kelly said. “For the medical students, it’s a good opportunity to give back to the community rather than just study all day. Sometimes it’s hard to remember why we’re here; this program gives the medical students an opportunity to build relationships with the teachers and the students in the classroom.”

Over the last year, MedKids participants spent one day a month teaching science lessons to first graders in Lockhart Elementary and Thompson Elementary. They also provided supplemental learning material for the teachers and students to use throughout the year.

“We teach various science lessons about chemistry, living versus nonliving, rocks and mineral, biology, and other natural sciences,” Kelly said. “Visuals are important with this age group; so our lessons are more hands-on and visual to reinforce the lesson.”

For their final lesson of the year, MedKids purchased more than 200 bike helmets to give out to the first-grade students in their classes. This gift was possible through a grant from the Texas Medical Association Hard Hats for Little Heads program.

“We put together an assembly and taught the students a lesson on bike safety such as looking both ways before crossing the street, and how and why they should wear their bike helmet,” Kelly said. “Then we did a melon demonstration where we used a cantaloupe to show them what happens with the helmet and without the helmet just to reinforce the point.”

For more information on MedKids visit http://med.uth.tmc.edu/administration/admissions/medkids.html or contact Felicity.L.Kelly@uth.tmc.edu

—K.  Neely

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Special lectures to honor Guynn

The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences is presenting two special lectures April 23 in tribute to former chair Dr. Robert Guynn.

Guynn, the second chair of the department, led the department and served as executive director of the UT Harris County Psychiatry Center for 18 years. Presently a professor of psychiatry, he has been on faculty for 34 years.

Dr. Thomas Kosten, of Baylor College of Medicine, will present the Faillace Lectureship on “Neurobiology and Treatment of Stimulant  Dependence” at 11 a.m. in MSB 3.001. The lectureship was created in honor of Dr. Lou Faillace, the first chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

The 14th annual Harold Cooper Lectureship will be presented by Dr. David Goldman, of the National Institute  on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, who will present, “Functional alleles, intermediate phenotypes, stress exposures and complex behavioral outcomes dependent on GxE: NYP and HTTLPR” at 3 p.m. in MSB 3.001. The Cooper lectureship was created by the family of Dr. Alan Cooper, a longtime faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, who established it in honor of his father, Harold Cooper.

Both lectures are offered for continuing medical education credits.

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