By Susan Van Dusen

Internationally recognized medical oncologist Michael Birrer, M.D., Ph.D., has been named vice chancellor and director of the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). Birrer specializes in gynecologic cancers and will join the university by the end of the year.

He formerly served as director of the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Birrer succeeds Laura Hutchins, M.D., who served as interim director of the UAMS Cancer Institute since June 2018.

“It is an honor to welcome Dr. Birrer as the new director of the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute. As a highly regarded physician-scientist, Dr. Birrer is uniquely qualified to increase the Cancer Institute’s capacity for innovative research and advanced clinical care in the years ahead,” said UAMS Chancellor Cam Patterson, M.D., MBA.

As director of the UAMS Cancer Institute, Birrer will lead all cancer-related activities for UAMS, whose cancer clinics reported more than 150,000 patient visits during the last fiscal year. There are about 150 UAMS faculty members engaged in cancer-related research and clinical activities.

“I left a professorship at Harvard Medical School in an attempt to help a broader number of patients suffering from cancer. This position at UAMS will allow me to do that for cancer patients throughout Arkansas,” said Birrer, who also will hold the position of Cancer Service Line director.

“Dr. Birrer possesses the strong leadership experience needed to move the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute toward the goal of achieving designation by the National Cancer Institute,” said Christopher Westfall, M.D., executive vice chancellor and dean of the UAMS College of Medicine. “He will no doubt be an outstanding addition to the Cancer Institute and to UAMS as a whole.”

NCI Designation is awarded through a highly competitive assessment process during which cancer centers must demonstrate outstanding depth and breadth of high-quality cancer research. Receiving designation brings substantial benefits, including the ability to access federal research funding and offer clinical trials not available to non-designated centers. It also is expected to result in a $72 million economic impact on Arkansas and create about 1,500 new jobs over five years.

In support of the Cancer Institute’s efforts of achieve NCI Designation, the Arkansas House and Senate unanimously passed in March 2019 Senate Bill 151, which established an account into which funds supporting NCI Designation could be deposited.

Then, with the support of Gov. Asa Hutchinson, an annual amount of at least $10 million was designated for efforts related to the institute’s quest for designation. The funds will be used to recruit top grant-funded scientists to bring their research dollars to UAMS to meet the requirements set by the NCI.

“Given the state support, UAMS and philanthropic support, we estimate a $70 million investment over the next five years in the Cancer Institute, which will strengthen our chance at NCI designation,” said Birrer.

“We look forward to working hand in hand with Dr. Birrer to ensure the Cancer Institute is actively serving the cancer care needs of all Arkansans, while also pursuing dynamic and forward-thinking research,” said Steppe Mette, M.D., interim vice chancellor for clinical programs and chief executive officer of the UAMS Medical Center. Mette served as chair of the director search committee.

“As I step down as Cancer Institute interim director, I am confident Dr. Birrer has the skills and desire to advance our mission and move the institute forward in many vital areas,” Hutchins said.

Birrer completed his medical degree and doctorate of philosophy in 1982 in the Medical Scientist Training Program at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Following a medical internship and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, Birrer entered the Medical Oncology Fellowship program at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. After his fellowship, Birrer was appointed senior investigator (with tenure) and established the molecular mechanism section in the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control.

In 2008, Birrer was appointed professor of medicine at the Harvard School of Medicine and assumed the position of director for both Gynecologic Medical Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Gynecologic Oncology Research Program at the Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center.

In 2017, he accepted the position of director of the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he served as professor of medicine, pathology and OB-GYN.

Recognized nationally and internationally as an expert in gynecologic oncology, Birrer’s primary research interest is in characterizing the genomics of gynecologic cancers to improve the clinical management of these diseases. His clinical interests include ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer and cervical cancer.

Birrer has approximately 400 publications, including peer-reviewed manuscripts, book chapters and review articles. He served as chair and chair emeritus of the Department of Defense Ovarian Cancer Research Program, chair of the Committee for Experimental Medicine of the Gynecologic Oncology Group, chair of the Translational Science Working Group of the Gynecologic Cancer Intergroup, and a member of the Gynecologic Cancer Steering Committee.

By Amy Widner

Imagine there’s an outbreak of an infectious disease. Could health officials on the ground harness the power of new handheld DNA and RNA sequencers to monitor outbreaks in real-time and quickly contain them?

This question lies at the heart of research published in the journal Infection, Genetics and Evolution by UAMS graduate student Duah Alkam. She and her advisers from the College of Medicine Department of Biomedical Informatics and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology collaborated with the Arkansas Department of Health to look at specimens collected during a 2016 mumps outbreak in Northwest Arkansas.

It took the Human Genome Project 13 years to complete the first sequence of a human genome in 2003. As sequencers became available for purchase, they were large, expensive and slow.

That has changed. Alkam used a device called the Oxford Nanopore Technologies MinION to sequence each sample in a matter of hours. To offload the data, she simply connected the MinION through a USB port to a laptop.

“You see results on your computer in real time,” Alkam said. “It’s fast, affordable and simple. The idea is that something like this might be useful during an outbreak, especially in a rural setting. If you can quickly identify a strain, you’re that much closer to understanding the origin of the outbreak, which may help contain it and protect the at-risk population.”

The new challenge for scientists is how to interpret the massive amount of data produced by these powerful sequencers. That is where the relatively new field of biomedical informatics comes in.

“Biomedical informatics allows us to look at genomes within a matter of hours and compare them, pinpointing connections and what might be important about these datasets,” Alkam said. “In this way, biomedical informatics is sort of the bridge between raw data and relevant information.”

In this case, Alkam was able to determine the unique characteristics of the specific variation of the mumps virus that was behind the 2016 outbreak. They used a computational technique called immunoinformatics to plot a “family tree” of sorts for the virus.

“We found that it was very similar to a strain that started an outbreak in Massachusetts around the same time in 2016, and it was also related to another strain that spread in Washington state, which may suggest that all three outbreaks originated from the same strain.”

While Alkam’s experiment was not conducted during an active outbreak, she and her advisers believe the results demonstrate great promise for the technique to be applied in the real world. Earlier in 2019, other scientists in the Department of Bioinformatics collaborated with researchers around the world for the first demonstration that the MinION could be used for the rapid genetic sequencing of multiple human viruses.

“The possibility of infectious disease outbreaks in health care settings and communities is something that unites us across the globe. We’re all vulnerable,” said Se-Ran Jun, Ph.D., Alkam’s adviser for the project and an assistant professor in biomedical informatics. “So at UAMS, it’s exciting each time we demonstrate how we can harness the power of new sequencing technology, big data science and analytics, and high performance computing in biomedical informatics to offer solutions.”

The project was funded with a grant to Jun from the UAMS for Translational Research Institute.

Alkam is a student in the UAMS Graduate School’s Graduate Program in Interdisciplinary Biomedical Sciences (GPIBS). Her other advisers are David Ussery, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics; and Mark Smeltzer, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology.

By Benjamin Waldrum

Two UAMS medical students have each been awarded a $20,000 Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield Primary Care Scholarship, which encourages aspiring physicians to pursue primary care practices in rural Arkansas.

This year’s recipients are Drake Cullum of Bono, a senior, and Olivia Brasher of North Little Rock, a junior. The scholarship has been presented to UAMS College of Medicine juniors or seniors annually since 2012.

Arkansas Blue Cross, the state’s largest insurer, established the endowed scholarship in 2010 with a $1 million gift to the UAMS Foundation Fund.

The scholarship is part of a broad effort to produce more family medicine, general internal medicine and general pediatrics doctors for Arkansas, especially in rural areas where access to primary care is limited. More than two-thirds of Arkansas’ 75 counties include federally designated Primary Care Health Professional Shortage Areas. Primary care physician shortages are expected to increase substantially as the state’s population continues to age and require more medical care, and as more Arkansans seek primary care services.

The College of Medicine has worked with private partners such as Arkansas Blue Cross to increase scholarships. The high cost of medical school and the burden of educational debt that most medical students face when entering their postgraduate residency training can be a factor in choosing higher-paying specialties instead of primary care and practicing in rural areas. The average medical school debt of recent UAMS graduates who have educational debt is about $195,000.

”Scholarships reduce debt concerns for outstanding students like Drake and Olivia who want to make a difference in rural communities in Arkansas, and allow them to focus on their education and becoming excellent physicians,” said Christopher T. Westfall, M.D., FACS, executive vice chancellor of UAMS and dean of the College of Medicine. “We are very thankful for Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s investment in our students and our state.”

”We see the challenges rural Arkansans face with getting needed medical services, and Arkansas Blue Cross is committed to improving access to quality health care throughout our state,” said Curtis Barnett, president and chief executive officer of Arkansas Blue Cross. “This scholarship addresses a small part of that need. We congratulate Drake and Olivia on this year’s award and commend them for their desire to serve rural Arkansans.”

Cullum graduated from Westside High School in Jonesboro and received his undergraduate degree from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. His family history on both sides dates back several generations in northeast Arkansas. He plans to practice family medicine in one of the counties in either northeast or south Arkansas depending on greatest need.

Since his freshman year, Cullum has been keenly interested in rural primary care, and has consulted with multiple family practice doctors and hospital administrators to better understand recruiting and retention in rural Arkansas as well as the needs of patients there.

“I can’t say I have pinpointed a specific area, but I am willing to go wherever there is a need,” Cullum said. “I love Arkansas, and with my long family ties and wonderful experiences growing up here, I wouldn’t look anywhere else to practice.”

Brasher graduated from North Little Rock High School and received her undergraduate degree from Hendrix College in Conway. Although she has lived in central Arkansas her entire life, she gained experience in family medicine in Helena-West Helena, and is interested in practicing pediatrics in a rural community in Northwest Arkansas.

“In getting to know Helena-West Helena and its people, I witnessed the struggles that community faces, and how much medical care can vary in different areas,” she said. “I learned the tremendous measures that some take to receive proper medical care, and how others that aren’t able to take those measures often suffer for it. After that experience, I became more open to serving in a rural area.”

Brasher’s own experiences as a patient with her family pediatrician inspired her to become a doctor. “I want to create that same familial environment, the one I have yet to find outside of primary care, while providing quality holistic care for my patients,” she said.

By Amy Widner

Professor William C. Culp, M.D., and colleagues at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) have published promising results from the first human trial of a new drug to treat strokes.

If the results of this Phase I clinical trial are repeated in the next phases, the UAMS professors could be responsible for developing a completely new method for treating strokes and significantly improving their life-altering consequences.

Their results were published in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology.

During a stroke, the blood supply to the brain is cut off and its cells begin to die. Clots clogging a blood vessel are a common cause. Current treatments focus on breaking up or removing the clot and restoring blood supply to the brain, but doctors must move quickly to prevent death or major debilitation. That is not always possible, especially in a rural state like Arkansas.

Culp has spent 10 years testing a different method using dodecafluoropentane emulsion (DDFPe). The drug is more efficient at carrying oxygen than a human red blood cell, and it is also smaller, on a nano-size scale. The DDFPe method allows the drug to travel past the clot, taking oxygen along with it to keep the brain alive and functioning during the stroke.

“What this drug gives us is time,” Culp said. “It stops the clock so the patient can get to the right hospital with the right expertise to restore blood flow, and that kind of time is something that more than 90% of stroke patients just don’t get.”

Culp is a professor of radiology, surgery and neurology in the UAMS College of Medicine. His UAMS co-authors are Sanjeeva Onteddu, M.D., (neurology), Aliza Brown, Ph.D., (radiology/neurology), Krishna Nalleballe, M.D., (neurology), Rohan Sharma, M.D., (neurology), Robert Skinner, Ph.D., (neurobiology/developmental sciences), Taylor Witt, M.D., (radiology), Paula Roberson, Ph.D., (biostatistics), and James Marsh, M.D., (internal medicine).

As is typical with Phase I trials, the main objective was to demonstrate the drug’s safety. However, among the 24 stroke patients tested at UAMS, not only did the researchers find that the method was safe, it was also effective. The more of the drug the patients got, the more improvement they showed.

The next step, a Phase II clinical trial, will involve many more patients, likely at different medical centers across the United States. It will confirm the drug’s effectiveness on a larger scale and help identify any possible side effects. Phase III and Phase IV trials would include even more patients.

For many scientists, seeing an area of research reach the clinical trial phase can be a once-in-a-career experience.

“It’s truly exciting,” Culp said. “We have conducted hundreds of experiments at UAMS to prepare for our first clinical trial, and they have shown, in various models, that this method could save about 80% of an area of stroke.”

There are about 800,000 stroke cases in the United States annually. Culp said that of those, 12% of those patients die and 12% suffer a major loss in ability to function and 10-15% are only able to live with constant help. Additionally, other studies have estimated that only about 10 percent of people who have a stroke actually get treatment, so the number of stroke cases could be much larger.

Culp’s research is part of a larger mission at UAMS to improve stroke treatment for Arkansans.

As recently as 2015, Arkansas ranked first in the nation in per capita stroke deaths based on data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2019, Arkansas ranked seventh in the nation, and the improvement is attributed in part to the UAMS digital health stroke program, part of the UAMS Institute for Digital Health & Innovation. It provides 54 Arkansas hospitals with round-the-clock access to stroke neurologists who can quickly assess whether a stroke patient can be helped by a clot-busting drug — alteplase — that often restores complete function to the patient.

Another new treatment is mechanical thrombectomy, during which an interventional radiologist threads a device into an artery at the groin and up to the clot, inserts a stent, then removes the clot to restore blood flow. UAMS is the only hospital in Arkansas able to provide this service 24 hours a day.

The ability to offer such services is why UAMS is the only health care provider in the Arkansas certified as a Comprehensive Stroke Center by The Joint Commission. The certification is the most demanding accreditation and is designed to designate hospitals that can treat the most complex stroke cases. It also means certified hospitals can provide endovascular procedures and post-procedural care and has an Emergency Department with a dedicated stroke-focused program.

Culp envisions a future where the DDFPe method could be added to these digital health, clot-busting and mechanical thrombectomy approaches to provide the vital time necessary for more patients to receive treatment.

“Strokes are terrible, life-altering things,” Culp said. “We have improved the outcomes through our digital health programs, but there are still so many people dying, so many people not getting the treatment they need right now. There’s so much more to be done to improve the delivery of care to the people of Arkansas, and to that end, we’re excited by these results and eager to continue the clinical trial process.”

By Amy Widner

Latunja Sockwell, a researcher at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), has received a $2.5 million federal grant to expand HIV and hepatitis C prevention education among African American men and women with a history of criminal justice involvement and substance abuse, especially opioid abuse.

The five-year grant comes from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

Sockwell is partnering with Better Community Development Inc., a licensed and nationally accredited faith-based substance abuse treatment center based in Little Rock’s 12th Street neighborhood. Through Project HEAL, she will educate its clients about how HIV and hepatitis C are spread, with the aim of increasing the participants’ use of preventive measures, increasing screening, decreasing stigma and ultimately, reducing rates of infection.

Sockwell is a researcher in the Research and Evaluation Division of the Department of Family & Preventive Medicine, which is part of the UAMS College of Medicine.

“The fastest growing population for rates of new HIV infection are among African Americans, and much of that growth is happening in the South,” Sockwell said.

There are about 5,516 people living with HIV in Arkansas, according to AIDSvu.org, which helps visualize federal data on HIV in the form of maps, charts and graphs. In Arkansas, 77.1% of people living with HIV are male. The number of black males living with HIV in the state is 4.4 times that of white males. The highest concentrations of people living with HIV in Arkansas are in Lee, Pulaski and Crittenden counties.

“We know how to prevent HIV transmission, so I look at those numbers and ask myself, what are we doing to get this information out to people?” Sockwell said. “You can provide screenings, but if you don’t educate people on how to stay safe in the first place, those numbers are going to continue to go up. So yes, we test, and we promote that it’s important to know your status, but we also put the power in people’s hands by giving them the education to protect themselves.”

Project HEAL is an expansion of the AR Passion Project, a similar program in which Sockwell worked with Better Community Development’s female clients.

Although the aim of this grant is to work with African Americans with a history of substance abuse and criminal justice involvement, Sockwell will work with any demographic group that comes through the treatment center during the project. She estimates she will work with over 1,200 people over the project’s five years.

Her HIV services will be just one part of the center’s multifaceted evidence-based treatment, including medication-assisted treatment for drug abuse, recovery support services like substance abuse peer counseling and support groups, housing for homeless and low-income individuals and families, violence prevention, and prevention of incarceration and community re-entry services.

Cindy Crone, M.N.Sc., APRN, with the UAMS Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health, is assisting with Project HEAL.

By Amy Widner

Sept. 4, 2019 | Erika Petersen, M.D., a neurosurgeon and researcher at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), has been named the lead investigator for a major national clinical trial exploring a unique treatment for a painful chronic diabetic foot condition.

The trial will test whether high frequency spinal cord stimulation is an effective treatment for painful diabetic neuropathy, a type of nerve damage caused by diabetes that results in severe pain and numbness in the hands and feet. About 4 million diabetic patients have painful diabetic neuropathy in the U.S. Spinal cord stimulation is a technique for treating pain that involves surgically implanting a device epidurally. Thin wires carry electrical current from the device to the spinal cord, providing therapeutic stimulation to the nerves in the area where the pain is felt.

The company sponsoring the trial, Nevro Corp., has been investigating whether the Senza® SCS system could also be effective for treating painful diabetic neuropathy. Nevro is a global medical device company focused on providing innovative products that improve the quality of life of patients suffering from debilitating chronic pain.

Petersen, an associate professor in the Department of Neurosurgery in the UAMS College of Medicine, has led the UAMS portion the research.

“Dr. Petersen’s performance in the study has been exemplary,” said David Caraway, M.D., Ph.D., chief medical officer of Nevro Corp. “Dr. Petersen has demonstrated tremendous leadership of her team through robust study recruitment, careful patient selection, and efficient movement of subjects through the protocol. As the lead principal investigator, Dr. Petersen will be the first author of the primary endpoint analysis report and will represent the investigators at many conference presentations of the study data.”

The company also applauded the contributions of UAMS sub-investigators Heejung Choi, M.D., Chris Paul, M.D., and Johnathan Goree, M.D., of the Department of Anesthesiology; neuropsychological assessments by Jennifer Kleiner, Ph.D., and Jennifer Gess, Ph.D., of the Department of Psychiatry; and research support services provided by the Translational Research Institute.

About a quarter of Americans with diabetes have painful diabetic neuropathy, according to published data. In Arkansas, where an estimated 363,000 people have type 2 diabetes, about 73,000 of those (20%) would be expected to have painful diabetic neuropathy. The number could be higher — a study conducted in five rural Arkansas counties concluded that painful diabetic neuropathy was alarmingly underdiagnosed.

Jennifer L. Hunt, M.D., chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Services in the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), has been chosen to receive the 2019 Emerging Leader Award from the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) Group on Women in Medicine and Science Division.

The award, only given to one woman each year, will be presented at the organization’s annual meeting Nov. 9 in Phoenix, Arizona. Established in 1995, it recognizes those who have been instrumental in developing women leaders.

“She has made a lasting impression on me and the other women in her program,” said Roberta Gebhard, D.O., president of the American Medical Women’s Association and one of several nominating Hunt. “She is a lifelong physician leader and gifted mentor.”

Hunt has sought out and mentored dozens of female physicians, many of whom now occupy positions of greatly increased responsibility, said UAMS’ Jennifer Laudadio, M.D., vice chair for Clinical Operations in the Pathology Department.

Hunt created an eight-week leadership program for women in medicine designed to increase self-confidence and reduce physician burn out and attended by nearly 100 female physicians.

Earlier this year, Hunt was one of five physicians nationwide chosen for the AAMC’s Council of Deans Fellowship Program for those identified as being qualified to become deans.

Hunt joined UAMS in 2011 and is the Aubrey Hough Endowed Professor of Pathology. She is nationally and internationally recognized for her clinical subspecialty expertise in head and neck, endocrine, and molecular anatomic pathology.

Before arriving at UAMS, Hunt served as an associate professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School and an associate chief of pathology and chief of anatomic and molecular pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

She is a graduate of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and received a master’s degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania. Hunt completed her residency in anatomic pathology and a fellowship in molecular genetic pathology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

By Amy Widner

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) has received a $4.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to improve access to quality health care in rural Arkansas by expanding efforts to train and retain primary care physicians.

The Arkansas Medical Education Primary Care Partnerships project aims to increase the number of primary care physicians practicing in rural areas and other medically underserved parts of the state. The four-year grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services funds a multipronged approach to:

• Strengthen the long-term health careers pipeline by recruiting and retaining more medical students from rural and underserved areas of the state, because such students are the most likely to return to practice in those areas.
• Create more opportunities for medical students to experience primary care practice in rural and underserved communities across Arkansas through service projects, mentoring, and a new Honors Track in Rural Primary Care, among others.
• Increase the number of rural clinical rotation sites and preceptors available to teach medical students in federally qualified health centers, critical access hospitals and other rural clinics and settings.
• Provide training and faculty development opportunities for new clinical faculty and preceptors at these new clinical sites.
• Strengthen partnerships with the Community Health Centers of Arkansas, Arkansas Rural Health Partnership, and historically black colleges and universities at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and Philander Smith College in Little Rock.

The project is a partnership among the UAMS College of Medicine, UAMS Regional Campuses across the state, and the UAMS Department of Family & Preventive Medicine.

UAMS Executive Vice Chancellor and College of Medicine Dean Christopher T. Westfall, M.D., is the program director, assisted by co-directors Marcia Byers, Ph.D., director of clinical innovation for UAMS Regional Campuses; Daniel Knight, M.D., chair of the Department of Family & Preventive Medicine; and Leslie Stone, M.D., director of Medical Student Education for the Department of Family & Preventive Medicine.

“Retaining physicians to provide primary care in Arkansas has been a long-term mission of the College of Medicine,” Westfall said. “Although we have worked to make Arkansas a national leader in retaining our medical graduates, Arkansas still has one of the worst physician shortages in the nation and we’re among the states projected as most likely to have serious primary care shortages by 2025.”

Over 500,000 Arkansans — over one-sixth of its population — live in an area defined by the federal government as lacking the adequate number of health professionals to serve the population. According to the Arkansas Department of Health, 50 out of 75 counties in the state fully or partially meet that definition.

“Arkansans need a partner in their primary care physician, someone who is easily accessible and can work with them to prevent disease, rather than just react to issues when they become a problem,” Knight said. “Best practices in primary care are now based on this preventive model. However, this ideal is far from reality for most Arkansans, and will remain so as long as we lack enough physicians to truly serve our state.”

UAMS Regional Campuses sites can be found in eight locations across the state, and UAMS programs reach almost every county in the state.

“Our Regional Campuses and programs are perfectly positioned to have a broad impact across all of Arkansas,” Byers said. “This grant will allow us to strengthen our partnerships and enhance rural opportunities to turn today’s bright students into future health care champions for their home communities.”

Teresita Bellido, Ph.D., has been named the next professor and chair of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics in the UAMS College of Medicine. She will be at UAMS fulltime by July 1, 2020, succeeding Michael Jennings, Ph.D., who is retiring after 25 years of service in the post.

Bellido is a tenured professor in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Indiana University (IU) School of Medicine and an adjunct professor in the IU Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology. She is also on faculty in the Graduate School of IU and Purdue University.

Bellido was a member of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism and researcher in the UAMS and VA Center for Osteoporosis and Metabolic Bone Diseases from 1993 to 2008, when she moved to IU.

“Dr. Bellido is a superb scientist and highly respected, internationally known leader in bone research,” said Christopher T. Westfall, M.D., FACS, executive vice chancellor of UAMS and dean of the College of Medicine. “She will bring great energy and a strong commitment to mentorship and faculty development to her new role at UAMS.”

Bellido holds multiple major grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as well as a Veterans Administration Merit Award. She serves on the Skeletal Biology Development and Disease Study Section for the NIH. Bellido will begin serving as president of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR) on September 22, becoming the ninth woman among 40 presidents in the society’s history and the first female president originally from Latin America.

Her lab at IU focuses on the mechanisms of signal transduction in bone cells with a particular emphasis on osteocyte biology in health and disease, bone cell apoptosis and mechanisms of action of bone active hormones. She will begin the transfer of her lab to UAMS after the first of the year.

Bellido received her doctorate in biochemistry in 1988 and completed an initial postdoctoral fellowship in 1990 at the Universidad Nacional del Sur in Argentina. For the next three years she trained with Stavros Manolagas, M.D., Ph.D., while he was on faculty in the Endocrinology and Metabolism Section at the Roudebush Veterans Administration Medical Center at Indiana University. In 1993 Manolagas recruited Bellido to UAMS, where he continues to serve as director of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism and director of the UAMS/VA Center for Osteoporosis and Bone Diseases.

While previously at UAMS Bellido was active in the Faculty Development Caucus, serving on the Women in Basic Sciences Subcommittee, which she co-chaired in 2000-2001, and in the mentoring program for postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty. She was also a member of the Grant Process Committee (1999-2000) and the Research Council (2006-2007).

Bellido continued her focus on mentoring at IU, where she received the Women Faculty Leadership Award and the Outstanding Postdoc Mentor Award in 2015. The ASBMR honored her in 2015 with the Paula Stern Achievement Award, which recognizes a woman in the bone research field who has made significant scientific achievements and who has promoted the professional development and career advancement of women. In 2018, the ASBMR presented Bellido the Gideon A. Rodan Excellence in Mentorship Award in recognition of outstanding support provided by a senior scientist who has helped promote the independent careers of young investigators in bone and mineral metabolism.

UAMS College of Medicine Department of Family and Preventative Medicine Community Research Group program manager LaTunja Sockwell was recently featured The Little Rock Daily Record. The article entitled “Slaying the Dragon” highlights Sockwell’s work in HIV prevention and education and focuses on her motivations for championing this work at DFPM-RED.

“I share my story because when people can put a face with something, it always changes their attitudes and their beliefs about what they thought they knew.

“Sharing my own personal story helps people see the real person, not just what they thought HIV was about.”

Read the full article here.