Munoz Architects of San Antonio is the design firm and Bartlett Cocke General Contractor LLC will oversee the construction, which is projected to be substantially complete by spring 2015.

The 125,000-square-foot, four-floor building will be built where existing modular structures are located behind the Health Science Center’s Holly Auditorium. “This new center will accommodate the added medical students who are bound for the new UT medical school in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas,” said William L. Henrich, M.D., MACP, president of the Health Science Center. “These students will undertake the first two years of their medical education in San Antonio before moving to the facilities in the Valley for clinical training. This new center will also include much-needed space and improvements for all our Health Science Center students, thereby enhancing our critical mission of education.”

The majority of the space in the new structure will be devoted to flexible classrooms and lecture halls that will support collaborative and interprofessional learning. A greatly needed and updated human anatomy teaching facility, with the latest and most sophisticated technology, including electronic simulators and virtual dissection equipment, will be provided.

The building will also include a common area, including food services and eating venues, to be used by students, faculty and staff. “As student enrollment at the Health Science Center has increased nearly 22 percent from fall 2000 (2,543) to fall 2012 (3,249), and as methods of teaching the health sciences have changed significantly since our facilities were first built, this additional new teaching space, with its advanced technology, is critically needed,” Dr. Henrich said. This will be the first building devoted primarily to education to be built on the central campus in many years, he said.

As noted, this new structure will also serve as a gateway for the creation of a free-standing medical school in the Valley as authorized by the 81st Legislature and endorsed by the Board of Regents, Dr. Henrich said.

Construction will start at summer’s end.

“I am excited about the many new positive attributes that this building will provide and I thank you, in advance, for tolerating any inconvenience that you might experience during the demolition and construction period,” Dr. Henrich said in an email to faculty, staff and students.

The American Hospital Association Grassroots Champions Award was created to recognize those hospital leaders who most effectively educate elected officials on how major issues affect the hospital’s vital role in the community, who have done an exemplary job in broadening the base of community support for the hospital, and is a tireless advocate for the hospital and its patients.

“We depend upon strong voices like yours to help tell the story of hospitals as cornerstones of the communities they serve,” said Rich Umbdenstock, AHA president and CEO.  “This award is a small token of our appreciation for your hard work and dedication to improving health and health care in America.”

THA selected Wesolowski for his consistent, strong leadership that continues to impact industry leaders and professionals beyond his own hospital.

“Jaime is a unique voice among senior health care executives in Texas with a clear ability to engage and influence other health care leaders on the most important industry issues,” said Dan Stultz, M.D., FACHE, FACP, THA president/ CEO. “His leadership is exemplary of the kind of role Texas hospital executives are having to improve the health care system in an age of change.”

The award is presented annually to one individual from each state with winners being chosen by the state association. The 2013 honorees were recognized at a special Breakfast of Grassroots Champions at the AHA Annual Membership Meeting on Tuesday, April 30, 2013.  Wesolowski is one of 52 individuals honored this year.

About the AHA

The AHA is a not-for-profit association of health care provider organizations and individuals that are committed to the health improvement of their communities. The AHA is the national advocate for its members, which includes 5,000 hospitals, health care systems, networks, other providers of care and 42,000 individual members. Founded in 1898, the AHA provides education for health care leaders and is a source of information on health care issues and trends. For more information, visit the AHA Web site at www.aha.org.

About the Texas Hospital Association

Founded in 1930, the Texas Hospital Association is the leadership organization and principal advocate for the state’s hospitals and health care systems. Based in Austin, THA enhances its members’ abilities to improve accessibility, quality and cost-effectiveness of health care for all Texans. One of the largest hospital associations in the country, THA represents more than 85 percent of the state’s acute-care hospitals and health care systems, which employ some 369,000 health care professionals statewide. Learn more about THA at www.tha.org or follow THA on Twitter @texashospitals.

About Methodist Healthcare

Methodist Healthcare System – San Antonio is the largest provider of health care in South and Central Texas with 26 facilities including nine hospitals serving 90,000 inpatients and 390,000 outpatients annually. The Methodist Healthcare team is comprised of 8,000 employees, making Methodist Healthcare the second largest private employer in San Antonio. In 2012, Methodist Healthcare was one of only two hospitals in Texas recognized by the Texas Medical Foundation with a Gold Award for Quality. Methodist Healthcare has won the National Research Foundation’s Consumer Choice Award for 13 consecutive years, more times than any other health care provider in Texas. For the past four years, Methodist Healthcare has received “Best Hospital” Gold Award by the San Antonio Express-News’ Readers’ Choice Awards. With more than 2,700 credentialed physicians, Methodist Healthcare provides the largest array of medical services in the region including neurosurgery, cardiovascular services, oncology and women’s services. Visit www.SAHealth.com to learn more.

The piano bar is a happening place over the holidays, and this past season was no exception. “The Friday and Saturday night of the Alamo Bowl I had huge crowds, but I knew something was wrong with my voice,” Miraglilo said.

Ten years after having a vocal cord nodule removed in another city, he rightly suspected that the hoarseness and tone problems in his voice would not go away without help.

Minimally invasive procedure

Online, Miraglilo learned about C. Blake Simpson, M.D., of UT Medicine San Antonio and booked an appointment. Dr. Simpson, a fellowship-trained otolaryngologist, told Miraglilo about a minimally invasive vocal cord procedure called pulsed KTP laser treatment. Dr. Simpson has treated at least 350 people with this therapy, which uses a laser to halt blood flow to vocal cord growths. The procedure is performed under local anesthesia. Without circulation, polyps and precancerous lesions shrivel and disappear. This frees the vocal cords, which are like guitar strings, to vibrate and oscillate normally to produce a healthy sound.

The pulsed KTP laser is found almost exclusively in academic centers. Only one other center in Texas has one, Dr. Simpson said. UT Medicine is the faculty practice of the School of Medicine at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio, where Dr. Simpson is a professor of otolaryngology – head and neck surgery.

30 minutes in the clinic

Before the technology’s introduction several years ago, patients such as Miraglilo with polyps, precancerous tissues or other vocal cord conditions were taken to the hospital operating room, where a metal tube was inserted into the mouth to dissect the tissues under full anesthesia. Surgery lasted a couple of hours, and recovery time was six weeks. By contrast, pulsed KTP laser patients are fully awake during the procedure, which is done in 30 minutes at the otolaryngology clinic in the Medical Arts and Research Center (MARC) on Floyd Curl Drive. Patients experience no pain and are fine to drive afterward. “The only thing patients can’t do after the procedure is talk, because we put them on voice rest for five days,” Dr. Simpson said.

The pulsed KTP laser is the same type that was used to treat British singer Adele. During the procedure, a tiny fiber is threaded through a flexible scope in the nose and guided into the throat. The scope includes a camera to enable ultra-high-resolution imaging of the vocal cords. The laser emanates from the fiber and acts only on the color red, targeting blood vessels. The laser doesn’t work by burning but is gentler, disrupting the structure of the blood vessels so that they implode or collapse. By the patient’s first or second post-operative visit, polyps or other growths are gone. Miraglilo’s polyp disappeared by his last visit.

Advantageous for patients

“This is safe and effective; we’ve never had a serious complication,” Dr. Simpson said. “This is, without a doubt, hands down, the most exciting technology that has come along in my 17 years of practice.” He leads The University of Texas Voice Center, which treats vocal conditions affecting patients from all walks of life. The UT Voice Center is part of UT Medicine.

Insurance usually covers the procedure, which reduces costs by eliminating the need for intravenous (IV) lines, medications and a recovery room.

“It takes longer to numb the throat with sprays than it does for the procedure itself,” Miraglilo said. “I was back singing full time after a few weeks. My last operation, I was out of work for five months.”

Miraglilo is thankful that he found the Voice Center on the UT Medicine website. “I’ve got my full range back, a four-octave range,” he said. “The highest song I have to sing is ‘Dream On’ by Aerosmith. Toward the end of the song, he’s (Steven Tyler’s) way up there.”

Miraglilo is a recording engineer who works out of his studio at home when he’s not at Durty Nelly’s. He follows a vocal coach’s routine of an early morning warm-up of his voice and a post-gig warm-down. “Dr. Simpson was my savior,” he said. “He basically gave me my career back.”

For more information about this voice-saving procedure available through UT Medicine San Antonio, call The University of Texas Voice Center at (210) 450-9950.

The purpose of the fellowship is to develop a multi-institutional network of investigators across the UT System in health delivery science and related areas, including implementation science, comparative effectiveness research, and patient-centered outcomes research.

“The network will build on the strengths of the six UT health institutions, including those with National Institutes of Health Clinical and Translational Science Awardees, with the goal of building collaborations and activities that will advance the field and take advantage of new funding opportunities,” Dr. Shine said.

Dr. Stevens is a professor in the Department of Health Restoration and Care Systems Management in the School of Nursing at the Health Science Center. She is the founding director of the Academic Center for Evidence-Based Practice. Since 2007, she has garnered $9 million to support efforts that advance evidence-based quality improvement through research, education and practice.

Her research emphasizes evidence-based quality improvement and patient safety through knowledge transformation, workforce preparation, and workforce engagement in evidence-based quality improvement.

Dr. Stevens has established national consensus on new skills needed in clinical care and initiated a series of professional development conferences for clinicians, scientists and hospital leaders.

Additionally, she developed the Improvement Science Research Network (ISRN), a national online research laboratory that enables academic and practice associates to conduct improvement research, accelerating the transformation of health care into safe and reliable systems.

In July, she is overseeing the Summer Institutes on Quality Improvement ­— which is a collaboration of the School of Nursing, the Academic Center for Evidence-Based Practice and the Improvement Science Research Network. This is the 12^th year for the summer institute and the first time it is a cluster of previously individual conferences. Over the past 11 years, approximately 5,000 participants have attended the institute, bringing change to hundreds of institutions.

Dr. Stevens’ work has earned her multiple awards, including fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, fellow of the Academy of Nurse Educators, Texas Nurses Association Nurse of the Year, and National League for Nursing Excellence in Education Research. She received one of the nursing profession’s most prestigious research honors – the Episteme Award – from Sigma Theta Tau International, the Honor Society of Nursing, for her impact on nursing knowledge.

This early life obesity resulted in metabolic damage such as insulin resistance and poor blood sugar control, a companion study showed.

Marmosets on track for obesity appeared to be more efficient in their feeding behavior. “Although all animals consumed the same amount of liquid, the ones taking in more on each lick were the ones that later became obese,” said Corinna Ross, Ph.D., lead author of one of the studies. Dr. Ross is instructor of cellular and structural biology in the School of Medicine of the Health Science Center and is based in the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies.

Model of early life obesity

“With its small size and early maturation, we think the marmoset is going to be an exceptionally good model of early life obesity and offers many opportunities to further explore why youngsters become obese and what interventions may work to counteract early life obesity,” said senior author Suzette D. Tardif, Ph.D., associate professor of cellular and structural biology in the School of Medicine and director of the marmoset research program at the Barshop Institute. The studies were conducted at the Southwest National Primate Research Center in San Antonio.

In previous studies, Dr. Tardif found that obesity patterns begin just 30 days after birth in the marmosets. A 30-day-old marmoset infant is the equivalent of a 5- to 8-month-old human infant. At 6 months of age, a marmoset is as old as a juvenile child before puberty. At a year old, the small non-human primate is the equivalent in age of a human adolescent.

The team monitored marmoset infant behaviors seven days a week to precisely document when each infant was weaned and ate its first solid food, Dr. Ross said. The team also observed 16 hours of liquid feeding using a device called a lickometer, as well as solid food feeding when the animals reached 3, 6 and 12 months old. Lickometer feeding mimics the way marmosets lick from sources in the wild, Dr. Ross said.

Metabolic damage

Both research articles are in the journal Obesity. The second paper, with Michael L. Power, Ph.D., of the Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park as lead author, reports on the metabolic consequences of early life obesity in the marmosets.

“The paper Mike led reveals just how damaging the obesity is in marmosets,” Dr. Tardif said. “By the time of adolescence, they’re already insulin-resistant.”

Marmosets have significantly less body fat than humans, but in the marmoset it takes considerably less fat to generate metabolic dysfunction, she noted.

Animals that are going to be normal weight gain lean mass, such as muscle, at a faster rate than they gain body fat. “That’s true for human children, as well,” Dr. Tardif said. But marmosets that became obese gained both fat mass and lean mass faster than their normal-weight counterparts. This meant that the obese animals’ percentage of body fat grew during infancy and adolescence.

The study was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (R01 DK077639) to Suzette D. Tardif, Ph.D.

“Our westernized diet is a big contributor to our higher rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity and other chronic diseases,” said Dr. Wargovich, who holds the CTRC’s Cancer Center Council Distinguished Chair in Oncology and is a professor of molecular medicine in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. “But it is possible to put many of these spices and foods back into our diet without giving up the things we enjoy.”

Flavorful cancer fighters will be the topic of the next CTRC free information series lecture on Thursday, April 11, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Unlike most lectures in this series, this one will take place at the HEB Partner Center, 4949 Rittiman Rd., San Antonio.

Dr. Wargovich and Chef Iverson Brownell will give a lecture and cooking demonstration on Thursday. They will discuss the health effects of different ingredients while using them to prepare simple dishes, and provide free printed recipes for those foods.

While Dr. Wargovich’s lab will also investigate the curative properties of the African headache plant and other traditional medicines, he said, it’s not necessary to leave Western civilization in order to benefit from this wisdom.

Ginger, cocoa, red grapes and green tea are other foods with anti-inflammatory properties that are easy to find at the neighborhood grocery store. It’s often a matter of incorporating the beneficial foods more regularly into the diet. “You can eat what you want,” Dr. Wargovich said, “but balance it out.”

The lecture is sponsored by H-E-B and the Institute for the Integration of Medicine and Science at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio. For more information call 210-450-1152 or go tohttp://www.ctrc.net/ctrc2.cfm?mid=2029&pid=1003.

“These results have changed the way I treat patients,” said Ian M. Thompson Jr., M.D., director of the Cancer Therapy & Research Center at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and senior author on the international study.

Hormone therapy in hormone-sensitive prostate cancer has been shown to help extend the lives of patients, but it causes a range of unpleasant side effects in men like moodiness, hot flashes, bone loss and sexual dysfunction. To give patients relief, doctors have, in some cases, “pulsed” the therapy — giving it to men for a time and then stopping it until the signs of prostate cancer activity reappear, then starting the hormone therapy again until the cancer appears to be under control.

The study shows that the continuous therapy helps men more. Men with less advanced metastatic prostate cancer who received the “pulse” or intermittent hormone therapy died an average of two years sooner than those on continuous therapy. The study results first drew attention when they were announced last summer at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

After that, prostate cancer survivor Floyd Balter switched from pulse to continuous therapy.

“Last year Dr. Thompson told me about the study results,” said Balter, 78. “I said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

Surviving 17 years beyond a diagnosis where he’d been given two years to live, Balter said he’s determined to watch his grandchildren grow for as long as possible.

“I want to live as long as I can,” he said. “I can live with the side effects. They’re a pain but I can tolerate them.”

In the study results, if men with more extensive disease are included in the group, survival was more modest, extended by an average of 7 months, “which is longer than any other intervention,” said Dr. Thompson, director of the CTRC. Often advances in cancer treatments will only extend life by an average of two or three months, he noted.

“I can now give a patient the option of putting up with some side effects in order to spend several more months or even years with his grandchildren,” Dr. Thompson said. “I can tell you they are happy to have that choice.”

Also, Dr. Thompson pointed out, because of the increase in PSA testing, most men who are diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer present with disease that is still minimal.

The study followed 1,535 men with metastatic prostate cancer for a median of almost 10 years. It was led by SWOG, an international network of research institutions. The significance of the results, adding months if not years to the lives of many men, means every physician with prostate cancer patients should take them into account, Dr. Thompson said.

During an assessment project she conducted at five Jordanian hospitals in 2008, Dr. Sowan found that 65 percent of bedside nurses thought research utilization is primarily a physician’s job.

“The majority of nurses were not aware of the research and evidence-based practice resources available to them, and, in fact, there often were not many resources available to them in some hospitals,” she said.

Evidence-based practices are applied to improve patient care, safety and patient outcomes. It is an interdisciplinary approach to clinical practice based on the idea that all practical decisions should be based on the latest and most valid research studies.

“I created evidence-based practice teams at 15 Jordanian hospitals in partnership with universities. I started with top managers, physicians, quality control officers and other leaders to raise their awareness. Main activities for each EBP team were to implement clinical-practical guidelines, create journal clubs, and raise awareness on EBP,” Dr. Sowan said.

She created an interactive, online evidence-based practices course for all bedside nurses in the participating Jordanian hospitals. “It had to be put on a CD because most nurses there do not have access to the Internet. The Internet is not easily accessible – especially in the underserved hospitals – like it is in the United States,” she said.

For her project, which was in coordination with the Jordanian Nursing Council Project and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Dr. Sowan received the 2013 “Best Nursing Project in the Arab World Award” from the League of Arab States.

Dr. Sowan started the nationwide project in 2010 and completed it in early 2012. The project was implemented at military, private, public and also underserved-based hospitals.

On March 1, she began working as an assistant professor in the Department of Health Restoration and Care Systems Management in the School of Nursing at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio. She previously served as an assistant professor at Hashemite University in Jordan.

Dr. Sowan’s research focuses on nursing informatics, a specialty related to the effective use of technology in nursing education, practice and administration.

Dr. Sowan is excited to bring what she learned from the award-winning project to her students in the School of Nursing. She will be teaching doctoral and master nursing students a “Healthcare Information Systems and Patient Care Technology” course.

She is planning to use educational resources available in the virtual hospital in the School of Nursing’s Center for Simulation Innovation in her future research projects. “I also am going to visit many hospitals, especially those in San Antonio, in order to understand the state of science in patient-care technology and contribute to that,” Dr. Sowan added.

Reto Asmis, Ph.D., a biochemist in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio, believes his team has uncovered a mechanism of action that better explains the Mediterranean diet’s benefits than the presence of antioxidants or mono-unsaturated fatty acids in the diet. His studies target the development of new mechanism-based dietary supplements for the prevention and treatment of atherosclerosis — the hardening and thickening of the walls of arteries due to deposits of fatty substances.

Plentiful in food sources

Dr. Asmis this year received a $1.86 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study ursolic acid and similar compounds. In his lab’s preliminary research, dietary ursolic acid protected diabetic mice against atherosclerosis. Ursolic acid is found in olive oil; fruits such as apples, cranberries and prunes; and herbs such as sage, oregano, lavender and peppermint.

“We predict that ursolic acid is a member of a new class of anti-atherosclerotic compounds with a mechanism of action distinct from drugs currently used for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease,” Dr. Asmis said.

White blood cells recruited to injury sites

Obesity, diabetes and high blood cholesterol are metabolic disorders and are associated with increased risk of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. In cell cultures, the Asmis team observed key events through which metabolic stress “primes,” or excessively sensitizes, white blood cells called monocytes to chemoattractants — signals that recruit these cells to sites of atherosclerotic injury within blood vessels, Dr. Asmis said.

This dysfunction is a critical step in the development and progression of atherosclerosis, he said. Ursolic acid seems to prevent the undesirable changes, and the team so far has identified several novel potential targets for this protective action. The group also seeks to classify other compounds that perhaps are more robust in activity than ursolic acid.

Heavy toll on the nation

Although death rates have declined over the past decade, cardiovascular disease still accounts for nearly one in three deaths in the U.S., and it is one of the major complications and causes of death associated with diabetes. “With more than 25 million people suffering from diabetes — more than 8 percent of the U.S. population — and an estimated total annual economic burden of $245 billion, new cost-effective prevention and treatment strategies are desperately needed,” Dr. Asmis said.

Potential of low-cost, available supplements

A new mechanism-based dietary supplement that is both relatively inexpensive and safe would greatly benefit populations at high risk for diabetes and diabetic complications such as Hispanic/Latino Americans, who are 1.7 times more likely to have diabetes than are non-Hispanic whites, Dr. Asmis said. “The availability of such low-cost dietary supplements for the prevention and treatment of diabetic complications therefore would have a very significant impact on our current disease prevention efforts,” he said.

Dr. Asmis also serves as professor of clinical laboratory sciences in the School of Health Professions and associate dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Health Science Center. He is a member of the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies.

The gift will be used to endow The USAA Foundation President’s Distinguished University Chair in Neurosciences. The chair will help retain and recruit international leaders and foster interdisciplinary discovery in neuroscience research, a field that spans all five schools and multiple scientific disciplines at the UT Health Science Center.

The first holder of the chair is Kenneth Hargreaves, D.D.S., Ph.D., professor and chairman of endodontics in the Health Science Center’s Dental School, whose groundbreaking research soon may lead to a new class of nonaddictive painkillers that hold the promise of impacting burn and cancer patients and others who suffer from severe or chronic pain worldwide.

The USAA Foundation recognizes the value of having a top health sciences university within the community and supports the Health Science Center in its efforts to achieve greater pre-eminence, USAA CEO Josue (Joe) Robles Jr. said. Recruiting and retaining outstanding scientists and clinicians is crucial to the Health Science Center’s ascent.

“We want to compete to bring the best and brightest to San Antonio, where they can make a difference for our community and the world,” Robles said. “This is certainly true in our business community, and it’s particularly true with the Health Science Center, which has the ability to improve so many lives.”

In the larger effort to move the Health Science Center forward, the neurosciences are a natural area of focus, both because of their especially broad impact and the Health Science Center’s existing strengths in that area.

Virtually everyone is affected by one or more of the large number of conditions that fall under the neurosciences, including chronic pain, headache, sleep disorders, stroke, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, autism, neuropathies and movement and muscular disorders. The neurosciences also encompass psychiatric conditions, such as mood disorders, personality disorders, eating disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety disorders and schizophrenia.

The country’s aging population has brought greater attention to conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. And military conflicts have led to more cases of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.

These conditions have common threads, and research in one area can lead to unexpected breakthroughs in another. This is leading to a new paradigm in the study of neurosciences – one that recognizes that medical and surgical issues often overlap with psychiatric conditions.

The Health Science Center currently has $55 million in annual research funding dedicated to the neurosciences, making them the leading funded scientific area at the university. Faculty working in the neurosciences can be found in all five Health Science Center schools and across any number of departments and divisions.

The university counts two leading neuroscientists among its deans: Francisco González-Scarano, M.D., vice president for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, and David Weiss, Ph.D., vice president for research and dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

Given the vast expanse of neuroscientific research taking place across the Health Science Center, President William L. Henrich, M.D., M.A.C.P., saw the need to recruit an accomplished investigator to help advance this promising field of study.

“Dr. Henrich recognized that our work in the neurosciences would be enhanced by a leader who can speak to the collective vision that drives our many research projects, and who can use that vision to recruit outstanding faculty, develop exciting new lines of research and encourage collaboration across disciplines,” said Kenneth L. Kalkwarf, D.D.S., M.S., president ad interim of the Health Science Center.

Dr. Hargreaves epitomizes the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to the neurosciences. He holds appointments in the School of Medicine and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in addition to the Dental School, and his training includes research fellowships at the neurobiology and anesthesiology branch of the National Institute of Dental Research, one of the National Institutes of Health.

His team, which brings together researchers with backgrounds in medicine, dentistry and the basic sciences, has made importance advances in pain research.

Said Dr. Hargreaves: “Our research is on the verge of a significant breakthrough. A gift like the one The USAA Foundation has made lifts us all and spurs the field forward. It will certainly be transformative in advancing my work and the efforts of our entire team, and it will set a course for future and continued success for generations to come.”