More than 30 UMDNJ faculty/physicians have been named to the "Top Physicians 2007" list published in this month's edition of South Jersey Magazine. They are members of the faculty of UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and UMDNJ-School of Osteopathic Medicine.
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Researchers throughout the University will share $3 million from the Foundation of UMDNJ Annual Grants Program (Foundation grants plus matches) to fund an array of research projects, from the role of predatory bacteria in oral health to early detection of Alzheimer's disease and new therapeutic approaches to cancer and spinal cord injuries.
The 50 individual grants range from $9,700 to $35,000 each and are matched by funds available to the researchers from other sources. The total amount is $1 million more than was awarded through this program last year.
Scores of UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School students started the school year on August 9 with a trip to Covenant House New Jersey to help repaint the non-profit agency’s gymnasium as part of an annual Cares Day community service event. Covenant House in Newark is the largest provider in the state of services to homeless and at-risk adolescents between the ages of 16 and 21.
Cares Day is held each year during New Student Orientation. The event is sponsored by an NJMS student organization that promotes community outreach.
The American Gastroenterological Association Foundation for Digestive Health and Nutrition (AGA) announced that Dr. Kiron M. Das, professor of medicine, chief of gastroenterology and hepatology and director of the Crohn's and Colitis Center of New Jersey at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, was honored for his exemplary contributions to gastroenterology through mentoring. The 2007 Mentors Research Scholar Award will be permanently endowed in his name and the names of his fellow honorees.
The AGA Foundation mentor honorees are a select group of individuals who have performed meritorious service as mentors to the world’s gastroenterology trainees. Dr. Das has trained more than 70 clinical and research students during his career.
A researcher at UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School may have unlocked the secret to why patients with some types of cardiovascular diseases become resistant to the blood vessel-relaxing effect of nitric oxide. Dr. Annie Beuve, assistant professor of Pharmacology and Physiology, was the senior author of a study that identifies nitric oxide as altering a binding molecule, a protein called soluble guanylyl cyclase.
Dr. Beuve speculates it is this modification by nitric oxide that could explain why the blood vessels stop relaxing after repeated stimulation and that this process could take place during the development of cardiovascular diseases including hypertension and atherosclerosis, a disease affecting the arterial blood vessels. Understanding its mechanism will help develop new strategies for the clinical treatment of these diseases, which affect more than 50 million Americans.
