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University of Washington School of Medicine
Online News
Vol. 10, No. 39
September 29, 2006
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To view an archived version of Online News on the UW Medicine Web site, visit:
http://www.uwmedicine.org/Global/NewsAndEvents/somnews/index.htm
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This week’s news:
* Seattle Cancer Care Alliance will develop first proton-beam therapy center in the Pacific Northwest
* Eberhard Fetz, who studies how brain signals control movement, receives his second Javits Award in the Neurosciences
* Medical scientists John Ensinck, Monique Cherrier, Jodi Smith and Anne Stevens honored at UW Clinical Research Symposium
* UWMC liver transplant patient salutes his health-care providers in Country Music Television segment
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SEATTLE CANCER CARE ALLIANCE TO DEVELOP PROTON-BEAM THERAPY CENTER
The Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) plans to develop a proton-beam therapy center to make this form of radiation treatment available to patients in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming.
The center will begin accepting patients in 2010. Of the five proton-beam therapy centers in the United States, The nearest is in southern California.
Proton beams deliver precise doses of charged particles to tumors. Because there is less damage to surrounding tissue, higher doses can be delivered to tumors. Proton beams are used to treat solid tumors of the eye, skull, neck, head, and prostate. They may also be able to treat other types of cancers, such as lung and breast cancer, and may provide a better option for children, who are sensitive to radiation side effects.
The SCCA has entered into an agreement with Proton Cancer Centers of America, LLC, to examine financial, construction, and operational issues. The new center will cost about $100 million and will be privately financed. Under a tentative timetable, groundbreaking may occur at the end of 2007. Evaluation of construction sites is underway. Initial design elements call for a 60,000-square-foot building for a single synchrotron particle accelerator, three treatment rooms, labs, and offices.
The therapy center will be able to treat about 1,500 patients per year.
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FETZ RECEIVES JAVITS
AWARD IN NEUROSCIENCES
Eberhard Fetz, professor of physiology and biophysics, recently received a Javits Award in the Neurosciences. The Javits Award gives up to seven years of NIH research funding to noteworthy scientists who study neurological disorders at the cellular and molecular level. This is the second Javits Award for Fetz, who is a scientist at the Washington National Primate Research Center.
Authorized by the United States Congress in 1983, the award is given in memory of the late U.S. Senator Jacob K. Javits, who was an advocate for research on a variety of brain and nervous system diseases. Javits had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Fetz investigates neural control of muscle movement. He is a leader in studies of brain-computer interfaces, which use brain signals to operate a computer or other device. The interface translates electrical signals associated with thought into a computer command. Fetz is studying how the nervous system adapts to a brain-computer interface as an artificial motor pathway. His work on retraining the brain this way may hold promise for devices that could improve the lives of people with paralysis, head trauma, neuromuscular diseases, and other conditions that hamper movement.
Fetz can be reached at 206-543-4839,fetz@u.washington.edu
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FOUR SCIENTISTS HONORED AT CLINICAL RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM
Four medical scientists from the UW General Clinical Research Center and the Pediatric Research Center at Children’s Hospital were honored Sept. 22 at the Second Annual Clinical Research Symposium.
Diabetes researcher John Ensinck, professor emeritus of medicine in the Division of Metabolism, Endocrinology and Nutrition, received the 2006 Lifetime Achievement Award for his outstanding scientific leadership. Ensinck served as the program director of the UW General Clinical Research Center from 1970 to 1995, a time of many seminal studies at the Center.
The 2006 Young Investigator of the Year Award in adult medicine went to Monique Cherrier, research assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, for her work on the cognitive effects of sex-steroid replacement in the elderly. Jodi Smith and Anne Stevens shared the Young Investigator of the Year Award in pediatrics. Both are assistant professor of pediatrics. Smith studies viral complications of transplants. Stevens is looking at the presence of a mother’s cells in her baby’s organs and vice versa, and how this might relate to immune diseases in women and children.
UW Provost Phyllis Wise and Scott Weigel, professor of medicine and associate program director of the adult unit of the GCRC, presented the awards.
Contact information for the recipients is:
Ensinck: 206-543-3158, ensinck@u.washington.edu
Cherrier: 206-685-8704, cherrier@u.washington.edu
Smith: 206-562-2524, jsmit7@u.washington.edu
Stevens can be reached at 206-667-4021, astevens@fhcrc.org
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UWMC LIVER TRANSPLANT PATIENT AIRS HIS THANKS ON CMT
A Country Music Television (CMT) segment ran several times early this month to convey Mike Sivley’s gratitude to his health-care providers. Sively, a Tennessee native and now a Vancouver, Wash., resident and former operator of a pest control company, received a liver transplant in January 2005. While he was severely ill, Sively and his three young sons would listen to Tim McGraw singing “Live Like You Were Dying.”
Sively wrote to CMT to ask to have the song dedicated to the staff at the Vancouver Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center, his physician Anna Sasaki, and to the staff at UW Medical Center. He especially wanted to thank Dixie Service, a hospital assistant on UWMC transplant unit 4SE who was with him when he woke up from surgery.
Impressed by his story, the CMT production crew filmed a segment featuring Sively’s appreciation for all the health-care workers who took care of him.
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Produced by UW Health Sciences/UW Medicine News and
Community Relations.
Justin Reedy, editor
206-685-0382, jreedy@u.washington.edu
Online News is copyright 2006. All rights, including electronic
redistribution, are reserved.
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