What's the Buzz? January 2023

Honors & Awards

Muhammad M. Mohiuddin, MD, Professor of Surgery and Scientific/Program Director of the Cardiac Xenotransplantation Program, was awarded an honorary doctor of science (DSc) degree by the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) at its annual convocation, which was held in December 2022 in Karachi, Pakistan.

Research & Grants

Djordje Atanackovic, MD, Professor, Department of Medicine, received a two-year, $996,846 award from the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund for work entitled “A Phase Ia Study of LT2950 Tri-specific CAR T-cells for Patients with Relapsed/Refractory B-Cell Lymphomas.”

Ilia Baskakov, PhD, Professor, Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology, was awarded a five-year grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) for “Role of Reactive Astrocytes in Prion Diseases.”

Lydia Tang, MB, BCh, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, received an 18-month, $288,072 grant from Gilead Sciences for “A Prospective Study Evaluating the Effect of Community-based Educational Intervention on Hepatitis Delta Virus Screening Among People with Hepatitis B Infection in the Washington-Baltimore Metropolitan area (HD-METRO).”

Presentations, Events, Lectures & Workshops

Vasken Dilsizian, MD, Professor, Department of Diagnostic Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, delivered an oral presentation at the 6th OCNM annual meeting, Chinese Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Shanghai chapter entitled “FDG PET/CT for Diagnosing CIED/LVAD Infection: Impact on Patient Management and Outcome.” The meeting was held in Shanghai, China, December 9-16, 2022.

Benjamin Lawner, DO, MS, EMT-P, Associate Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, delivered a lecture on “Air Medical Utilization Concerns” at the Air Medical Physician Association Medical Directors’ Core Curriculum Conference, which was held in Tampa, FL, on November 2, 2022.

Amal Mattu, MD, Professor of Emergency Medicine and Vice Chair of Academic Affairs, lectured on “Acute Decompensated Heart Failure,” “Cruising the Cardiology Literature 2022,” “Recent Advances in Emergency Electrocardiography,” and “Myocardial Ischemia and Mimics: ECG Cases” at ACEP2022, the annual scientific congress of the American College of Emergency Physicians, held in September in San Francisco, CA.

Dr. Mattu also served as director of the 12th annual conference on “The Crashing Patient: Resuscitation and Risk Management” for a global video audience on December 6-7, 2022. Approximately 200 viewers from 22 countries attended in real time, and more than 500 registrants will have access to the program’s lectures through January. More than 30 Department of Emergency Medicine faculty, including nine current or past faculty development fellows, presented at the conference on topics including septic shock, mechanical ventilation, resuscitation, point-of-care ultrasound, and neonatal, pediatric, and psychiatric emergencies.

Publications

Gregory Alexander, MD, Resident, Department of Radiation Oncology, was among the authors of “Federated Learning Enables Big Data for Rare Cancer Boundary Detection,” which was published in Nature Communications on December 5, 2022.

Daniel Gingold, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor, Department of Emergency Medicine, was the senior author, with nurse practitioners Sarah Somers, FNP-BC; Suzanna Fitzpatrick, DNP, ACNP-BC, FNP-BC, NREMT-P; and Courtney Hicks, DNP, FNP-C, of “Enhanced Telemedicine Capabilities in a Mobile Integrated Health Program to Improve Primary Care Access During COVID-19 Pandemic,” which was published in the Online Journal of Nursing Informatics on October 1, 2022.

Mary Kay Lobo, PhD, Professor, Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology, and her lab members were authors of “Molecular, Circuit, and Stress Response Characterization of Ventral Pallidum Npas1-neurons,” which was published in The Journal of Neuroscience on November 28, 2022.

Sergio Dominguez Lopez, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology, and his collaborators were authors of “Neuronal Deletion of MnSOD in Mice Leads to Demyelination, Inflammation and Progressive Paralysis that Mimics Phenotypes Associated with Progressive Multiple Sclerosis,” which was published in the February 2022 issue of Redox Biology.

Pranshu Mohindra, MD, Associate Professor, and Martha Francis, PhD, RN, Nurse Practitioner, both with the Department of Radiation Oncology, were the authors of “Exploring Dyad-Based Communication During Cancer: A Pilot Study,” which was published on December 1, 2022, ahead of print in Cancer Nursing.

Jason Molitoris, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, was among the authors of “Functional Imaging of Liver Cancer (FLIC): Study Protocol of a Phase 2 Trial of 18F-DCFPyL PET/CT Imaging for Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma,” which was published in PLoS One on November 11, 2022.

David Marcozzi, MD, MHS-CL, Professor; Daniel Gingold, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor; Sean Naimi, Student; and Benoit Stryckman, MA, Research Associate, all with the Department of Emergency Medicine, are among the authors of “Evaluating Social Determinants of Health in a Mobile Integrated Healthcare-Community Paramedicine Program,” which was published in the Journal of Community Health on October 21, 2022.

Toni Pollin, PhD, Associate Professor; Kristin Maloney, MS, MGC, Assistant Professor; Yue Guan, PhD, Adjunct Instructor; Elizabeth Streeten, MD, Clinical Professor; Coleen Damcott, PhD, Associate Professor; Devon Nwaba, MPH, Clinical Research Specialist; Kathleen Palmer, BSN, Program Coordinator; Linda Jeng, MD, PhD, Adjunct Associate Professor; Alan Shuldiner, MD, Professor, all with the Department of Medicine; Katharine Bisordi, MGC, Instructor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; Nicholas Ambulos, PhD, Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology; and Danielle Sewell, MS, Manager, Oncology Program, were among the co-authors of “Model for Integration of Monogenic Diabetes Diagnosis Into Routine Care: The Personalized Diabetes Medicine Program,” which was published in Diabetes Care on August 1, 2022.

Rekha Rapaka, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, was among the co-authors of “Temporal Improvements in COVID-19 Outcomes for Hospitalized Adults: A Post Hoc Observational Study of Remdesivir Group Participants in the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial,” which was published in Annals of Internal Medicine on November 29, 2022.

Lydia Tang, MB, BCh, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, was senior author of “Safety and Efficacy of the Oral TLR8 Agonist Selgantolimod in Individuals with Chronic Hepatitis B under Viral Suppression,” which was published in the Journal of Hepatology on October 29, 2022.

Phuoc Tran, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, was among the authors of “Evaluating Potential Overuse of Surveillance Care in Cancer Survivors,” which was published on November 11, 2022, ahead of print in Cancer Medicine. Dr. Tran was also the first author of “Phase II Randomized Study of Salvage Radiation Therapy Plus Enzalutamide or Placebo for High-Risk Prostate-Specific Antigen Recurrent Prostate Cancer After Radical Prostatectomy: The SALV-ENZA Trial,” which was published on November 11, 2022, ahead of print in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Marco Venniro, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology, was among the co-authors of, “Operant Social Seeking to a Novel Peer after Social Isolation is Associated with Activation of Nucleus Accumbens Shell in Rats,” which was published in Psychopharmacology on November 30, 2022.

Mike Winters, MD, Professor and Vice Chair of Clinical and Administrative Affairs in the Department of Emergency Medicine; Kami Hu, MD, Assistant Professor; and Joseph Martinez, MD, Associate Professor, both also with the Department of Emergency Medicine, coauthored “The Critical Care Literature 2021,” which was published on October 19, 2022, ahead of print in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

Matthew Witek, MD, MS, Associate Professor, Department of Radiation Oncology, was the senior author of “Patterns of Failure for Hypopharynx Cancer Patients Treated with Limited High-Dose Radiotherapy Treatment Volumes,” which was published on December 2, 2022, ahead of print in the Radiation Oncology Journal.

Owen Woodward, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, was among the co-authors of “Kidney Epithelial Cells are Active Mechanobiological Fluid Pumps,” which was published in Nature Communications on April 28, 2022. He also was among the co-authors of “Defining Cellular Complexity in Human Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease by Multimodal Single Cell Analysis,” which was published in Nature Communications on October 30, 2022.