The Miller School of Medicine is competing for the NIH/NCRR Clinical & Translational Science Award. This is a major award worth up to $6 million annually for five years. It is a vital element in the school’s strategy to enhance its standing in clinical research with the NIH; it establishes the Miller School of Medicine’s credentials with the NIH and will allow us to catalyze the application of new knowledge and techniques to clinical practice at the front lines of patient care.  

The American Cancer Society (ACS) Institutional Grant is providing funds for meritorious cancer research that cannot be readily supported through other funding mechanisms. The primary purpose of the ACS grant is to provide seed funds for the initiation of promising new projects or novel ideas by junior faculty members. Applicants must not have had any peer reviewed funding. Two awards for $35,000 are available for a one year period. For guidelines and application forms for the ACS Institutional Research Grant, contact Dorothy Mills at 305-243-6292 or dmills@med.miami.edu. The deadline for applications is Tuesday, January 31.

The 2006 Open Enrollment verification forms are being delivered via interoffice mail. Carefully review your 2006 benefit elections. If there is any incorrect information, fax the 2006 Open Enrollment verification form with the corrections to 305-284-4568. All corrections must be received by 5 p.m. Friday.

Effective immediately, the Miller School of Medicine’s performance evaluation process has changed to better align the performance evaluation with decisions regarding merit increases. This is part of an overall strategy of migrating to a performance-based approach and providing more meaningful evaluations. 

“Phishing” is the use of fraudulent e-mails and web sites to steal personal data in order to commit identity theft and other crimes. Incidents are epidemic; 13,000 different attack variations falsifying more than 100 company brands were reported in September alone. There’s a new and more dangerous type of threat called “spear-phishing,” which uses crafted e-mail messages and web sites to trick you.
 
The bogus e-mail messages and web sites used in spear-phishing are near-perfect replicas of those from companies like Amazon, eBay, PayPal, various banks and credit card issuers, and even the Internal Revenue Service. The messages are often targeted at people known to have an established relationship with the organization being imitated. In addition to asking for information directly, the attacks are increasingly bundled with sophisticated data-harvesting spyware that can silently infect victims’ computers.
 
Information Technology’s staff fights a continuous battle to keep malicious e-mail out of your workplace inbox, but some still get through. Last month, more than 2.6 million inbound messages to the School of Medicine were filtered out. We need your help, because the filters can’t catch everything.  Be cautious any time an e-mail, or a website to which you were directed by an e-mail, asks you to reveal personal or organizational data. Read about what else you need to do to protect yourself at http://it.med.miami.edu/x500.xml.

The Department of Medical Information Technology periodically conducts focus groups to help improve its services to the campus community. The small-group sessions last 90 minutes and are scheduled during lunch. We provide the food; volunteer participants provide the opinions.

University employees and families are now eligible to receive discounts and express appointments with the University of Miami Dental Implant Center. The Division of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and General Dentistry offers state-of-the-art dental implants. It is Miami’s only dental practice staffed by expert academic surgical dentistry professionals. The center is open Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and is located on the second floor of ACC East. Call Tara Ashley at 305-585-6407 for a free evaluation or to make an express appointment.

If you are a clinical or research faculty at the medical or nursing school and have ongoing projects and/or collaborations with the South Florida community (outside of UM), please contact Dr. Luigi Meneghini, associate professor of clinical medicine and director of the Kosow Diabetes Treatment Center, at Lmeneghi@med.miami.edu. Please describe your activity so that it can be included in the school’s Clinical and Translational Science Award application.

To ensure that your child car seat is installed correctly, a certified child passenger safety technician will be available on Wednesdays in front of the Mailman Center from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The service is available to everyone who transports children under the age of 12 in their vehicle. For more information, e-mail gstepanian@um-jmh.org, or call 305-243-3928 to set up an appointment. Priority will be given to those with appointments. The Injury Free Coalition for Kids is a division of Holtz Children's Hospital/ Miller School of Medicine.

A representative from Lincoln Financial Group will be at the medical campus today to conduct individual financial counseling sessions. To schedule an appointment, contact Theresa Yong at (305) 245-7332 or via e-mail at tmyong@lnc.com.

• University Compliance (anonymous hotline): 866-YOURCALL
• Billing (anonymous hotline): 305-243-HELP or 877-415-HELP
• Research Integrity and Compliance: 305-243-6415
• Financial Improprieties: 305-284-2605
• Privacy Office/HIPAA: 305-243-5000 or 1-866-366-HUSH
• University Ombudsperson: 305-284-4922

Any University of Miami employee reporting or deciding whether to report activity that may be in violation of a law, rule, or regulation is protected against retaliation by the Whistleblower Protection Statement. For more information, visit the Office of Compliance site.

• Please note that submissions are due no later than 5 p.m. Thursday for publication on Tuesday.
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The Mort Silverblatt Head and Neck Cancer Support Group will meet at UM/Sylvester at Deerfield Beach, 1192 East Newport Center Drive, suite 100, today (Tuesday) from 1:30 to 3 p.m. The facilitator is Penny Fisher, M.S., R.N., C.O.R.L.N., clinical instructor, advanced practice nurse, head and neck cancer, UM/Sylvester. The support group is free and open to all head and neck cancer survivors, their families and friends.  Participants need not be patients of UM/Sylvester. The group meets the second Tuesday of every month. For additional information, including directions to UM/Sylvester at Deerfield Beach, please call 1-800-545-2292 or 305-243-1000.

There will be a Faculty Senate meeting tomorrow (Wednesday) at 3:30 p.m. in the College of Engineering’s McArthur Annex, room 202. All faculty members are welcome to attend. Visit http://www.miami.edu/FacultySenate for more information.

Tomorrow (Wednesday), Olufunmilayo Olopade, M.D., professor, Center of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Medicine, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, will present “HER2-Targeted Therapies in Breast Cancer” at 9 a.m. in UM/Sylvester, room 1301. For more information, please contact Kathy Salce at 305-243-2287.

The Sponsored Programs Education Workshop will be held at the medical campus tomorrow (Wednesday) in the seventh-floor auditorium of the Lois Pope LIFE Center from 3 to 5 p.m. The workshop is a requirement for all individuals who would like to be listed as key personnel on sponsored programs, to educate them about the fiscal and compliance issues of pre- and post-award management. The workshop covers the most recent information on the grant process, explains established policies and procedures and reviews the PI’s role and responsibility for administering sponsored projects.  Preferably all key personnel will attend an educational session by June 30, 2006. A listing of other available dates and locations can be found on the research tools web page at http://www.miami.edu/UMH/CDA/UMH_Main/1,1770,2425-1;36662-2;34960-2;38799-3,00.html. Log onto NetLearning at https://netlearning.miami.edu to register. For more information, please contact mvalero@med.miami.edu.

Kenneth W. Goodman, Ph.D., director of the Bioethics Program, will present “The Role of Ethics in Sponsored Programs” on Thursday at noon in the Baxter conference room of the Batchelor Building. Research sponsors are increasingly making explicit the need for an ethics component in the projects they support. "Ethics" ranges from human subjects protection to the responsible conduct of research. Ethics requirements are a mix of regulatory compliance and, more importantly, a recognition that ethically optimized research is better than the alternatives. Log onto NetLearning at https://netlearning.miami.edu to register. For more information, please e-mail mvalero@med.miami.edu.

Life is hectic, so it helps to be financially organized. Conducted by a financial specialist from the University’s Employer Support Solutions Program, this seminar is designed to help employees learn strategies for effectively managing finances. It will be held on Friday from noon to 1 p.m. in room 155 of the Dominion Parking Garage. Visit NetLearning at http://netlearning.miami.edu to register. For answers about registration, contact 305-243-3090. For answers about content, call the EAP at 305-284-6604.

The Department of Rehabilitation Medicine will present “Post Traumatic Headaches” on Friday from 8 to 9 a.m., in the third-floor auditorium of the Jackson Rehabilitation Center. The speaker will be Zoraya Parrilla, M.D. For further details, please contact Coretha Davis at 305-585-1431.

Maggie Kane, infection control specialist at UM/Sylvester, will present “Minimizing Your Risk of Infection” on Monday, December 19, from noon to 1 p.m. in UM/Sylvester, room 1301. A light lunch will be served. Please call 305-243-1000 to reserve your space.

“Meeting Facilitation Skills for Supervisors” will be held on Wednesday, December 21, from 9 to 11 a.m. in room 155 of the Dominion Parking Garage. Seating is limited. Visit NetLearning at http://netlearning.miami.edu to register. For more information about the Leadership Academy, visit www.miami.edu/development-training/la, or call 305-243-3090.

Honors

The University of Miami Pediatric Hemophilia Treatment Center  received the Health Education Award during this year’s National Hemophilia Foundation 57th Annual Meeting in San Diego, California, on October 29. Under the leadership of Dr. Joanna A. Davis and with support from the Hemophilia Foundation of Greater Florida, Patrice Bravo, MSW, and Maria E. Santaella, R.N., created the “Infusion 101 Workshop” for patients and their families. This comprehensive, bilingual workshop offered young teens and their families an opportunity to review and master the techniques of self-infusion. It also provided them with an intimate venue in which to explore complicated feelings related to self-infusion and hands-on self-infusion education.

Geoffrey T. Miller, NREMT-P,  associate director of emergency medical skills training at the Center for Research in Medical Education, was the recipient of the 2005 Mary Ann Talley Instructor / Coordinator of the Year award. He was honored at the annual meeting of the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians.

Alberto Pugliese, M.D.,  associate professor of medicine, immunology and microbiology, published new findings that could significantly advance treatment of autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes. The scientific work, published in The Journal of Immunology, focused on dendritic cells, which are key regulators of the immune system. 

Presentations

S. Barry Issenberg, M.D.,  associate professor of medicine and director of educational research and technology, and Ross J. Scalese, M.D., assistant professor of medicine and assistant director of educational research and technology at the Center for Research in Medical Education, presented a full-day course on Clinical Skills at the American College of Physicians’ Annual Session in San Francisco. This course is one of the American Board of Internal Medicine Self-Evaluation Program learning sessions for recertification. At the same meeting, Drs. Issenberg and Scalese were both inducted as Fellows of the American College of Physicians.

Paolo Romanelli, M.D.,  assistant professor in the Department of Dermatology and Cutaneous Surgery, chaired a comprehensive dermatology session at the recent European Academy of Dermatology and Venerology annual congress, held in London in October. Other speakers at the session were Keyvan Nouri, M.D., associate professor, and three third-year residents, Julia Ai, M.D., Hamad Al-Abdulrazzaq, M.D., and Melissa Lazarus, M.D., in the Department of Dermatology. Romanelli gave two other lectures at the same meeting on the subject of dermatopathology.

Publications

Carlos T. Moraes, Ph.D.,  associate professor of neurology, published a paper in PNAS, the magazine produced by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.  The paper discussed the use of restriction endonucleases as gene therapy tools for mitochondrial disorders.

Penny Tenzer, M.D.,  associate professor, vice chair, and director of the residency program in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, recently published an article entitled “Quality in Residency Education” in the Annals of Family Medicine.

 The Division of Cosmetic Dermatology, directed by Leslie Baumann, M.D., is looking for people over the age of 18 who have never been treated with botulinum toxin to participate in a research study to determine whether injections with an investigational drug (Botulinum toxin Type A) will correct frown line wrinkles in the glabellar area (between the eyebrows). If interested, please contact a member of the research staff at 305-532-5552.

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