By Benjamin Waldrum

Priya Mendiratta, M.D., M.P.H., geriatrician and director for the geriatric clerkship and course for medical students at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), was invested Jan. 16 in the Alexa L. & William T. Dillard Distinguished Chair in Geriatrics.

“Thank you so much for bestowing this great honor upon me and the Department of Geriatrics,” said Mendiratta. “I want to quote Gandhi, who has had a big influence in my life: ‘Be the change you want to see in the world, and always believe something wonderful is about to happen.’”

Mendiratta, who provides clinical care at the Thomas and Lyon Longevity Clinic in the UAMS Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, joined UAMS in 2005 as a geriatric fellow. An associate professor in the UAMS College of Medicine, she will be elevated to full professor in July. She is also a Certified Medical Director in post-acute and long-term care medicine and is medical director of two long-term care facilities in the Little Rock area.

An endowed chair is among the highest academic honors a university can bestow on a faculty member. A distinguished chair is established with gifts of at least $1.5 million, which are invested and the interest proceeds used to support the educational, research and clinical activities of the chair holder. Those named to a chair are among the most highly regarded scientists, physicians and professors in their fields.

“Dr. Mendiratta is a true asset to the senior population of this state, and we can’t thank her enough for all her hard work,” said UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson, M.D., MBA. “She truly becomes a part of her patients’ lives in a transformative way, and she passes on that knowledge and compassion to her students in the classroom as well.”

The late William T. Dillard, the founder of Dillard’s Inc., one of the nation’s largest fashion apparel and home furnishings retailers, provided the initial funding for the chair. From an $8,000 investment in a single store in Nashville, Arkansas, Dillard built a premier retail chain with a national presence of more than 300 stores in 29 states.

“I am the permanent president and founding member of the Priya Mendiratta fan club,” said Paul Drew, Ph.D., professor and vice chair of the Department of Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences and professor and director of research for the Department of Neurology, both in the UAMS College of Medicine. Mendiratta cared for Drew’s parents during the last 10 years of their lives.

“The best decision I ever made was to get my parents to Arkansas, because of the excellent clinical care she provided for them,” said Drew. “She helped them get to the specialists they needed; she arranged things for them to go to the ER; she visited them after hours in the hospital and the nursing home; she visited my father when he was in hospice; and she was there and provided eulogies at my parents’ services. If this isn’t complete and compassionate care, I don’t know what is. She is exceptional.”

Mendiratta was presented with a commemorative medallion by Patterson and Christopher T. Westfall, M.D., executive vice chancellor and College of Medicine dean. She thanked the Dillard family for their vision and generosity in establishing the chair. She also thanked her patients and their families, as well as her own family, her students, and her geriatrics colleagues and staff at the Reynolds Institute.

“We in Arkansas were accepted as immigrants and were welcomed with open arms,” said Mendiratta. “We were supported not only in our workplace, but in the city and the community, which has been an exhilarating experience. We have developed deep relationships with many of you, so thank you for being there for supporting us.”

Mendiratta received her medical degree from the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Sewagram, Nagpur University, India, and pursued her residency in internal medicine in India. She later received a master’s degree in public health from Boston University School of Public Health. Her clinical training in the United States includes a family medicine residency and a two-year geriatrics fellowship in the UAMS Department of Geriatrics.

Mendiratta has received numerous awards for her role in resident and medical student education. She has been an adviser to multiple medical students and has been working with the medical students’ academic houses program since its inception. She was elected to the UAMS Academic Senate as a College of Medicine representative in 2018 and is a member of many of the UAMS education committees.

Her teaching methodologies, development of the geriatrics curriculum and use of technology has transformed the student experience. She has introduced many innovative approaches in teaching, including interactive case modules, virtual reality, telemedicine, geriatric boot camp, and interprofessional geriatric simulation. Mendiratta is the state affiliate leader for the American Geriatric Society, representing the UAMS geriatric clerkship nationally at numerous meetings, where her guidance has helped generate an audience for student-developed innovative patient education products. She was named a Fellow of the American Geriatric Society in 2013.

Mendiratta is involved in educating trainees in developing countries and contributes her energy and expertise to various global programs for the underserved. She has been featured in the Best Doctors in America consistently over the past decade and has published clinical research in various peer-reviewed journals.

It looks like something conjured by the imagination, or perhaps an other-worldly landscape. But an award-winning artistic image actually has roots in the laboratory and creative minds of researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).

Brian Storrie, Ph.D., a professor in the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Physiology and Biophysics, and research associate Irina Pokrovskaya, M.S., used 3D renderings from sophisticated microscopic imaging techniques to create a winning entry in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) 2019 BioArt competition.

Though it evokes a surreal world, the image actually shows a thrombus, or blood clot, that has formed inside the jugular vein of a mouse to close a puncture and stop bleeding. An aggregation of blood platelets appears as a wispy, pale purple cap over the reddish, globular mass of erythrocytes (red blood cells) within. Beneath the clot, the punctured jugular vein appears as a wavy pink and brown field. In the background, the lumen, or interior space inside the vein, appears black.

The UAMS researchers collaborated with Kenny Ling, B.S., Yajnesh Vedanaparti, B.S., Maria A. Aronova, Ph.D., and Richard D. Leapman, Ph.D., of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) in Bethesda, Maryland, on the artistic project, and with additional collaborators at the NIBIB and the University of Kentucky in Lexington on studies that led to it.

“The actual image comes from playing with 3D renderings from 4,000 sequential cross section (images) of a five-minute post-wounding thrombus,” Storrie explained. “The cross-sections are spaced just 200 nanometers, or 0.2 microns, apart. Different layers of the structure can be made more or less transparent or translucent, and layers can be colored as wished.”

The genesis of the artwork was research into human platelet activation using ex vivo (outside of an organism) experiments. Storrie and colleagues at UAMS, the NIBIB and the University of Kentucky published two papers in the journal Blood Advances in 2018. The collaborators went on to consider what platelets do in vivo, or in the body, to form a thrombus to stop bleeding. The standard thinking had been that platelets form a plug that fills the hole of a wound, and the researchers began to explore this concept, working initially with mouse puncture wound samples produced by Tim Stalker, Ph.D., of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and later with samples produced at UAMS.

At the NIBIB, the team produced 20 image sets, each consisting of thousands of micrographs across individual thrombi, using a serial block face imaging electron microscope and then rendered into 3D images. At UAMS, the team produced an additional 15 image sets using wide area transmission electron microscopy, stitching together hundreds of individual electron micrographs at selected depths within a thrombus to yield highly detailed subcellular imaging at a resolution of 3 nanometers.

Storrie and his colleagues are working to document their findings. An initial short article on platelet activation state was published in Blood in November 2019, and subsequent detailed manuscripts are being prepared to highlight bleeding cessation mechanisms, the activation state of individual platelets in a forming thrombus, and the structural organization of thrombi. Ultimately, their work could yield valuable information for potential therapeutic targets for preventing life-threatening blood clots.

In the process of pursuing scientific knowledge, the researchers found the opportunity for a creative diversion, and the result was the entry in the FASEB BioArt contest. Storrie emphasized that the NIBIB’s Kenny Ling and UAMS’ Irina Pokrovskaya also had lead roles in the endeavor.

“There is much satisfaction in realizing that what is true of us can be captured in a beautiful and striking image,” Storrie said. “This is a team effort, and my congratulations to the team.”

Jay K. Bhama, M.D., has joined the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) as a heart surgeon, professor and chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Surgery in the Department of Surgery.

He will lead the cardiovascular program at UAMS by working alongside Paul Mounsey, M.D., director of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine. Both departments are in the UAMS College of Medicine.

Bhama is a nationally recognized heart surgeon with significant health care leadership experience within the cardiovascular arena. With a special interest and expertise in heart valve surgery as well as mechanical circulatory support, Bhama brings a unique skillset to the cardiovascular program at UAMS.

Bhama divides his time between UAMS and Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock, where he serves as the Heart Failure and Transplant Institute’s surgical director for heart transplantation and co-director for mechanical circulatory support (MCS) and left ventricular assist devices (LVAD).

Bhama formerly was professor and chief of the adult cardiac surgery program at University of Iowa Health Care in Iowa City. Under his leadership, the program became a regional leader in heart valve surgery, structural heart disease and MCS/LVAD. A national expert and thought-leader in the field of heart failure surgery, Bhama also was director of the heart transplantation, MCS, and extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation programs. Prior to that, Bhama was associate director of the cardiothoracic (heart and lung) transplant and artificial heart programs at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Bhama earned his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and completed a general surgical residency in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery, also at Baylor. He completed cardiothoracic surgical training at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He also completed an advanced cardiac surgery fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and a fellowship in cardiothoracic transplant and mechanical circulatory support at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Bhama is a diplomate of the American Board of Surgery and American Board of Thoracic Surgery and is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons, American College of Cardiology, and American College of Chest Physicians. Castle Connolly Medical Ltd. has named him one of the nation’s top doctors in thoracic and cardiac surgery based upon peer nominations.

Bhama is widely published, with over 100 peer-reviewed publications. He holds several patents on innovative medical devices and serves as a reviewer for the field’s leading medical journal. He is also the state’s only cardiothoracic surgeon member of the prestigious American Association for Thoracic Surgery.

Bhama has been in practice for over 15 years and his clinical interests focus on heart failure surgery, such as left ventricular assist devices and heart transplantation, as well as general cardiac surgery, including heart valve surgeries such as complex mitral valve repair. His research focuses on clinical outcomes after heart transplant and MCS procedures and the development of innovative medical devices for the management of advanced heart failure.

Please join the UAMS College of Medicine Parents Club on January 28, 2020, at The Arkansas Repertory Theater for an amazing evening as the club hosts a silent and live auction beginning at 5 pm.

Hors d’oeuvres and drinks will be served during the auction times and before curtain call at 7 pm.  We are thrilled to see Tony Award Winner and Golden Globe Nominee Elizabeth Ashley in ANN, the indomitable Texas Governor Ann Richards.  You can get more information and order tickets at https://UAMSParentsclub.com.

Researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) have found a potential link between PTSD in combat veterans and changes in thyroid function.

Spyridoula Maraka, M.D., is an assistant professor in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism in the Department of Internal Medicine in the UAMS College of Medicine and staff physician at the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System (CAVHS). She and her research fellow, Freddy J.K. Toloza, M.D., presented their findings at the annual meeting of the American Thyroid Association. Their research was also featured in the Endocrine Daily Briefing and Clinical Endocrinology News.

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects 6-9% of the U.S. population but is closer to 20% among veterans. People with PTSD have difficulty with physical and emotional symptoms after witnessing a life-threatening or terrifying event. PTSD can linger for years, with triggering events bringing back unwanted memories or symptoms.

“Treatments exist, but there is a lot of room for improvement,” Maraka said. “Researchers have long noticed a potential link between endocrine disorders like thyroid disease and psychiatric conditions like depression and anxiety. Though the suggestion of a link is controversial because it has not been completely explained, the goal of our research was to explore this connection by looking at thyroid function and PTSD.”

Maraka, Toloza, and collaborators performed a meta-analysis, which is a type of research in which no new experiments are performed, rather researchers take the results of many other studies, combine them and look for patterns. In this case, they found 10 previous studies about PTSD and thyroid function involving 674 participants.

For their first analysis of the data, they found that the patients with PTSD had higher levels of the thyroid hormone triiodothyronine (T3) than those without PTSD, or the control group. They decided to dive deeper into the data, and a second analysis compared people with combat-related PTSD to the control group separately from people with other PTSD types.

“What we found surprised us,” Maraka said. “The correlation was the strongest between T3 hormonal levels and the combat-PTSD group. In fact, once we looked at the data in this way, it became clear that the combat group was the main driver of the correlation. The combat group continued having higher T3 levels compared to the control group, but people with non-combat-PTSD were not different than the control group.”

Maraka stressed that the finding is merely an association and not proof of a cause. However, it does tell researchers that they should investigate further in this area. A medication that could target one or both issues could emerge as a more effective treatment for PTSD than those currently available. For her next step, Maraka plans to conduct a study testing thyroid markers in veterans with combat-related PTSD.

“This could teach us more about how the body adapts to stressful situations, both mentally and hormonally,” Maraka said. “It’s possible that there is a difference between PTSD that develops from long-term exposures to life-threatening stress, like combat, and brief exposures, like a car accident or crime. Understanding more about these differences could lead us to more tools for treating them.”

Also assisting with the project was Richard R. Owen, M.D., a professor at UAMS and associate chief of staff for research at CAVHS and other members of the UAMS Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Cardiologist J.L. Mehta, M.D., Ph.D., received multiple honors during a recent trip to Rome.

Mehta is a distinguished professor of medicine and physiology and biophysics at UAMS and holds the Stebbins Chair in Cardiology in the UAMS College of Medicine.

He gave an invited lecture at the 80th annual session of the Italian Society of Cardiology, Dec. 12-15 in Rome. Mehta spoke on “Efferocytosis, A New Player in Atherosclerosis.”

Also at the meeting, Mehta’s society peers gave him a Distinguished Achievement Award for being an excellent mentor and outstanding researcher responsible for key discoveries, like the critical role of platelets in coronary artery disease and the role of a particular protein called LOX-1 in cell death and inflammation.

In addition, the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” awarded him a distinguished professorship at a gala ceremony.

Mehta joined the faculty at UAMS in 2000 to lead the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine.

He is known for his original work on platelet biology and thrombosis in myocardial ischemia in collaboration with his wife, Paulette Mehta, M.D., UAMS professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology. This groundbreaking work led to trials of aspirin and other anti-platelet drugs in cardiac patients.

His research over the last 15 years has focused on the biology of LOX-1, a receptor for oxidized low-density lipoprotein, which has opened a new target for cardiovascular therapy. His research has been supported continuously for 36 years by the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and several pharmaceutical companies.

Mehta serves or has served on the editorial boards of several major cardiology, physiology and pharmacology journals. He has published over 1,300 papers, abstracts and book chapters. He has published seven books and has 11 patents. He has published in prestigious journals with a worldwide impact.

He is a member of several prestigious academic societies and has received major national and international awards. Recent major awards include a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Academy of Cardiovascular Sciences and the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.

Mehta was named among the top 27 cardiologists in 2017 in the United States by Forbes magazine. He has been frequently listed among the Top Doctors in the US, and the Best Doctors in Arkansas.

Mehta has lectured in over 35 countries. He is an honorary professor in the University of Rome, Italy, and an adjunct professor for the Clinton School of Public School in Little Rock and serves as consultant to the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville in Nanotechnology and Biomedical Engineering.

Rawle A. “Tony” Seupaul, M.D., has been named chief clinical officer for UAMS Medical Center at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).

“Dr. Seupaul has been an exemplary head of our Emergency Medicine program for the past six years,” said Steppe Mette, M.D., senior vice chancellor for UAMS Health and UAMS Medical Center CEO. “This promotion allows us to leverage his medical expertise and leadership skills across our inpatient and outpatient operations. He has served in this new role on an interim basis for the past six months and has already built strong relationships with staff at all levels across the institution.”

As chief clinical officer, Seupaul will oversee all clinical care at UAMS, serving as the medical staff liaison with medical center administration and coordinating activities of the service line medical directors. He will work with other members of the executive leadership team to identify and implement best practices to ensure the safety of all patients and employees. He will also continue to serve as Chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine in the UAMS College of Medicine.

An international emergency medicine authority, Seupaul came to UAMS in 2013 as professor and chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine. He previously served on the Emergency Medicine faculty at Indiana University School of Medicine and Wishard Health Services in Indianapolis. He received his medical degree from Northwestern University in Chicago as an honors graduate in 1997. He completed his internship and residency in emergency medicine at the Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, N.C., serving as chief resident during his final year.

Seupaul has been the principal investigator on a number of clinical trials in emergency medicine and has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts and other publications.

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UAMS is the state’s only health sciences university, with colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions and Public Health; a graduate school; hospital; a main campus in Little Rock; a Northwest Arkansas regional campus in Fayetteville; a statewide network of regional campuses; and seven institutes: the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, Psychiatric Research Institute, Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, Translational Research Institute and Institute for Digital Health & Innovation. UAMS includes UAMS Health, a statewide health system that encompasses all of UAMS’ clinical enterprise including its hospital, regional clinics and clinics it operates or staffs in cooperation with other providers. UAMS is the only adult Level 1 trauma center in the state. U.S. News & World Report named UAMS Medical Center the state’s Best Hospital; ranked its ear, nose and throat program among the top 50 nationwide; and named six areas as high performing — cancer, colon cancer surgery, heart failure, hip replacement, knee replacement and lung cancer surgery. UAMS has 2,727 students, 870 medical residents and five dental residents. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 10,000 employees, including 1,200 physicians who provide care to patients at UAMS, its regional campuses, Arkansas Childrens Hospital, the VA Medical Center and Baptist Health. Visit www.uams.edu or www.uamshealth.com. Find us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram.

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