Vermont Medicine Magazine
DEPARTMENT OF Pharmacology ~ 2012 Annual Report
Selected Highlights
- Mark Nelson, Ph.D., as Keynote Speaker gave a lecture on “The Consequences of Calcium Signaling in the Neurovascular Unit in Health and Disease” at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Smooth Muscle Conference in Snowmass, CO.
- George Wellman, Ph.D., as Keynote Speaker gave a lecture on “Impact of subarachnoid hemorrhage on parenchymal arterioles and neurovascular coupling” at the Vasospasm Satellite Meeting, STROKE 2012 (annual meeting of Japan Stroke Society), Fukuoka, Japan.
- Alan Howe, Ph.D., was appointed a full member of the Cell Structure & Metastasis Peer Review Group of the American Cancer Society.
Mark T. Nelson, Ph.D., Chair
The Department of Pharmacology continued to make substantial contributions to the academic mission of the College of Medicine and the University. In the area of research, the department published over 25 peer reviewed articles in top biomedical journals including Science; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; and Structure. Departmental research was cited in other publications nearly 3,000 times in 2012.
Our faculty members have been honored over twenty times as keynote and invited speakers at universities and prestigious international meetings around the world. Extramural support remained strong, with funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), American Heart Association, foundations, and industries. Faculty members were active participants in several NIH training grants for graduate and postdoctoral trainees. The department continued to receive support from the Totman Medical Research Trust for an interdepartmental research effort to understand cerebrovascular function and disease.
Mark Nelson, Ph.D., will co-lead a research effort by UVM investigators and colleagues from France, Germany, Massachusetts, and Iowa that will focus on small vessel disease of the brain, funded by a new five-year, $6 million grant from the Fondation Leducq Transatlantic Networks of Excellence Program. The team’s research will focus on uncovering details regarding the mechanisms that cause cerebral small vessel disease of the brain, a condition that accounts for roughly 25 to 30 percent of ischemic strokes, is a leading cause of cognitive decline and disability and is linked to high blood pressure.
The minor in Pharmacology for undergraduates continues to grow, with nine students graduating in May 2012 and 21 current students. Faculty members have taught in virtually all courses in the Foundations level of the Vermont Integrated Curriculum, as well as a Medical Summer Pharmacology course. This effort included one-on-one mentoring in research laboratories, didactic lectures in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology, Toxicology, Principles of Drug Discovery, Cancer Biology, Cell and Molecular Biology and Introduction to Pharmacology.
Pharmacology faculty members serve on a number of important committees. Frances Carr, Ph.D., is chair of the Faculty Standards Committee; Alan Howe, Ph.D., is a member of the Protocol Review Committee for the Vermont Cancer Center, and Anthony Morielli, Ph.D., is chair of the Admissions Committee for the Neuroscience Graduate Program. Faculty members also continue to play key service roles on a number of grant review committees for the NIH and the American Heart Association.
Last modified January 24 2013 09:43 AM
