Sarah Ingersoll, clinical assistant professor of neurology at the Keck School, competed in the 2014 Nautica Malibu Triathlon on Sept. 14. Ingersoll, a 72-year-old Pasadena resident, finished first in her age group, but noted that she was also the only one in it. The triathlon benefited Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and raised more than $1.35 million.

Keck Medical Center of USC is hosting a produce stand with fresh produce, herbs and jams in the Keck Hospital of USC Cafeteria.

The market returns on Oct. 6 and Oct. 20 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

USC occupational scientist and occupational therapist Elizabeth A. Pyatak, PhD, OTR/L, has received a $450,000 NIH grant to expand her investigation of ways to help young people with diabetes more successfully adopt the self-care habits and protocols recommended by their physicians.

The three-year grant, from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, will enable Pyatak, assistant professor in the USC Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, to conduct a clinical study of a health-related lifestyle intervention targeting Los Angeles Latinos in their teens and 20s.

The study will build upon early-stage research that Pyatak conducted at the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute.

People with diabetes are advised to exercise, eat right, watch their weight, take medications and/or insulin injections, and monitor their blood sugar regularly, explained Pyatak.

“Young people with diabetes often feel like they’ve been given a laundry list of recommendations, but no suggestions on how to integrate those recommendations into their everyday life,” said Pyatak. “These young people need tools to operationalize health habits.”

Pyatak developed a lifestyle intervention program that drew from the extensive literature on diabetes self-care, existing occupational therapy interventions, as well as her own research. Her preliminary findings suggested the lifestyle intervention may lead to improvements in medication adherence, blood glucose monitoring, depression, and quality of life.

The NIH grant will fund a larger, randomized clinical study with 80 participants.

— By Paul Karon

Jordan Rivera, a second-year medical student and 2014 General Electric-National Medical Fellowships Primary Care Leadership Program Scholar, recently presented his independent service learning project at the National Association of Community Health Centers’ Community Health Institute & Expo.

At the event, held in San Diego on Aug. 26, Riviera presented his project, “Mobile Phone and Internet Access among Low-income and Homeless Populations,” to a panel of distinguished national health-care leaders. The annual event represents the nation’s largest gathering of community health-care managers, clinicians, board members and leaders.

Joy Jones, director of the Primary Care Leadership Program, said Rivera’s Project was one of only four invited to be presented at the conference and said it was selected “for its rigor, relevance to primary healthcare delivery, and potential for expansion or replication.”

In a rare distinction for one university, neuroimaging world leaders and USC Professors Arthur Toga, PhD, and Paul Thompson, PhD, will receive two major research center awards to advance their exploration of the human brain.

Toga and Thompson each will establish a Center of Excellence under a National Institutes of Health initiative to mine discoveries from the vast and exponentially growing amounts of data created by imaging science, genetic sequencing and many other biomedical fields.

The awards total $12 million and $11 million for Toga and Thompson, respectively, over four years. NIH is funding several Centers of Excellence, including the two at USC, under its Big Data to Knowledge initiative.

The two researchers’ teams have gathered what they believe to be the world’s largest collection of brain scans. The collection is housed at the USC Institute of Neuroimaging and Informatics and continues to double in size every two years. The two center grants will allow the researchers to move from data collection to large-scale analyses that could point to new treatments for autism, Alzheimer’s disease, mental illness and many other neurological diseases and disorders.

Toga and Thompson came to USC a year ago as leaders of a massive neuroimaging cluster of 110 faculty, researchers and multidisciplinary staff. Their recruitment was a signature moment in the university’s drive to attract scholars with the potential to transform their fields.

When the recruitment was announced, USC President C. L. Max Nikias said: “This cluster hire will help us move one step closer to understanding the structure and function of the human brain.”

The NIH initiative signals the agency’s commitment to invest in the same goal. The university’s own Digital USC initiative, established last year by Provost Elizabeth Garrett, supports neuroimaging research as part of a commitment of $1 billion over 10 years toward gathering, interpreting and applying digital data on a massive scale.

“In receiving substantial grants supporting one of the NIH’s priority initiatives, Professors Toga and Thompson and their USC colleagues expand this university’s leadership in the areas of neuroscience, informatics and big data. More important is the potential for consequential research produced within these new centers to influence our basic understanding of the brain and identify causes of brain-related diseases,” Garrett said.

Toga’s NIH award will establish the Big Data for Discovery Science Center, which aims to develop database systems and computational strategies to help scientists and physicians mine complex data about the brain.

“The unifying focus of the BDDS Center is to promote a ‘science of discovery,’ ” said Toga, who also directs the USC Institute of Neuroimaging and Informatics. “Around the globe, we are collecting massive amounts of biomedical data, but the technology to process it all does not exist. We are proposing to create the framework that is essential to truly understand how the brain works and functions.”

Thompson will head the ENIGMA Center for Worldwide Medicine, Imaging and Genomics, a global consortium of more than 300 researchers sharing data to study nine major brain diseases. The global effort is developing tools to discover predictive factors in the genome that affect brain development and disease.

“ENIGMA is the largest alliance in the world studying factors that help or harm the brain,” said Thompson, who also is director of the USC Imaging Genetics Center. “We will develop new computational algorithms to integrate this vast array of data available to us to find biomarkers of mental illness and brain diseases, allowing for better diagnostics and more personalized medical treatment. In a way, we are extending the mathematics currently used for code-breaking and pattern recognition to find patterns in the brain.”

The NIH launched the BD2K initiative in 2013 to support research, implementation and training in data science that would enable biomedical scientists to maximize the use of large datasets in their studies.

Toga is a Provost Professor in the departments of ophthalmology, neurology, psychiatry and the behavioral sciences, and radiology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, with a joint appointment at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. In addition to directing the Institute of Neuroimaging and Informatics, he leads the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, also at USC.

Thompson is associate dean for research and professor of neurology, psychiatry and the behavioral sciences, radiology, pediatrics and ophthalmology at the Keck School of Medicine, with a joint appointment at USC Viterbi. In addition to directing the USC Imaging Genetics Center, he serves on the faculty of the Institute for Neuroimaging and Informatics and the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging.

For more information about the work of Toga and Thompson, visit:

Toga: http://bd2k.ini.usc.edu/

Thompson: http://enigma.ini.usc.edu/

— By Carl Marziali and Alison Trinidad

Open enrollment for benefits-eligible faculty and staff of the University begins soon, and employees are encouraged to choose Keck Medicine of USC providers by signing up for the USC Network Medical Plan.

This plan offers a choice of physicians, convenient locations and competitive costs. Keck Medicine of USC has grown exponentially, with locations in areas where staff and faculty live and work, such as multi-specialty clinics in Downtown Los Angeles, Pasadena, Beverly Hills and La Cañada Flintridge. A multi-specialty clinic at University Park Campus (UPC), on the fourth floor of the Engemann Student Health Center, is also a convenient option for staff and faculty working at UPC. The office is open 8 a.m. to noon and from 1- 5 p.m. with same-day appointments available. Services provided there include dermatology, primary care, lab blood draw, orthopaedic surgery, endocrinology, gynecology and rheumatology. In addition, the USC Eye Institute locations are now offering general ophthalmology services and take VSP insurance. These locations include Los Angeles, Arcadia, Beverly Hills and Pasadena.

In addition, many of our physicians have practices throughout Southern California, specializing in primary care, obstetrics/gynecology, surgery, oncology/hematology and urology. When you choose the USC Network Medical Plan you can receive appointment scheduling assistance from the Trojan Family Navigator, at (323) 442-8102.

The USC Network Medical Plan is a PPO, allowing participants a choice of which physicians they want to see. Tier I of the plan includes nearly 600 USC physicians and more than 300 doctors associated with USC Verdugo Hills Hospital, serving the Foothill communities. The plan also includes access to PIH Health’s hospitals in Whittier and Downey, urgent care centers in Whittier and Hacienda Heights and its more than 300 physicians. Tier II includes any doctor with an Anthem Blue Cross Prudent Buyer contract. This opens up a vast network of choices of locations where participants can receive care.

The USC Network Medical Plan gives you access to Keck Medicine of USC physicians who are leaders in their fields, including those at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, where patients have access to the latest treatment and clinical trials.

“We want our faculty and staff to take advantage of the world-class services and care we offer right here at USC,” said Tom Jackiewicz, MPH, senior vice president and CEO for USC Health which operates Keck Medicine of USC. “As we are expanding our locations, and whether you’re looking for a primary physician or a specialist, we want you to be our first choice.”

Signed benefits enrollment forms for changes or additions to medical, dental, vision, flexible spending accounts and disability insurance plans must be submitted no later than Friday, Nov. 14. Forms are available for download at https://employees.usc.edu/2015-benefits-open-enrollment-news/

— By Talar Shahinian

Keck Medicine of USC is the first medical center in Southern California, post-Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, to implant a new wireless device for heart failure patients. The device is designed to reduce readmissions to the hospital and empower patients to be involved in their own health information.

The CardioMEMS Heart Failure System, made by St. Jude Medical, is a tiny wireless sensor, powered by radiofrequency energy and implanted into the pulmonary artery (PA) with minimally invasive surgery. The sensor tracks PA pressure through short, daily readings that the patient conducts using a special pillow with an antenna. Physicians access the readings on a secure website. Clinical trials conducted prior to FDA approval demonstrated a 30 percent reduction in hospital readmissions.

David Shavelle, MD, associate professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, implanted the device in patient Alfredo Delatorre, 71, of La Puente, Calif. on Oct. 15, 2014.

“This device is a game changer for heart failure patients,” said Shavelle. “Before this device, we made medication changes based upon a patient’s symptoms and changes in their weight.  Changes in pressures within the heart often occur prior to the onset of a patient’s symptoms.  The pivotal CHAMPION clinical study that evaluated the CardioMEMS device showed that medication changes based upon changes in pressures measured by the device reduced future hospitalizations.  Now that we have access to pressure data in real time, this will allow us to respond and adjust treatment much faster; responding faster will allow us to reduce future hospitalizations for heart failure.”

Delatorre said the implant offers him a chance to celebrate his 50th wedding anniversary in 2015 with his wife and two daughters, and to watch his five grandchildren grow up. Raised outside a small town in Zacatecas, Mexico that had only two doctors, Delatorre says he is amazed that he is the recipient of this life-saving technology.

“My mother used home remedies,” said Delatorre, who has suffered from heart failure for more than 10 years. “Now I have this new invention. It’s like a gift to my body. It’s like winning the lottery, but it’s better because this is a life.”

Heart disease is the No. 1 cause of death in the United States, according to the American Heart Association, killing more than 380,000 Americans every year. Cardiovascular diseases kill more Americans than all forms of cancer combined, with heart disease accounting for one in six deaths in the U.S.

Heart failure occurs when the heart cannot pump enough blood throughout the body. Causes include a past heart attack, high blood pressure, abnormal heart valves and diabetes. Those suffering from heart failure experience shortness of breath, fatigue, nausea, increased heart rate and water retention leading to swelling of the abdomen, legs and feet and an inability to sleep lying flat due to fluid build-up in the lungs. Some patients can recover heart function and lead normal lives, some require transplants or an implanted ventricular assist device and some have limited physical function and require frequent hospitalizations. Typically, heart failure affects people age 65 or older, although it can strike at any age and sometimes during pregnancy in younger women.

Monitoring this device for Delatorre and other patients is provided by a heart failure team at Keck Medicine of USC that includes Shavelle, Michael Fong, MD, associate professor of clinical medicine; Luanda Grazette, M.D., associate professor of clinical medicine; Leslie Saxon, MD, professor and clinical scholar and founder of the USC Center for Body Computing and Andrew Yoon, MD, assistant professor of clinical medicine.

—By Leslie Ridgeway

The Keck School of Medicine Dean’s Recognition Ceremony and Faculty Teaching Awards was held Sept. 24 on campus.

Honorees included:

Outstanding Year I Course

Musculoskeletal

Outstanding Year II course

Cardiovascular

Outstanding Required Clerkship

Internal Medicine

Outstanding Selective/Elective

Emergency Medicine

Outstanding Teaching as a Resident

Rayhan Lal, MD, Pediatrics

Daniel Martinez, MD, Medicine

Barbara Rubino, MD, Medicine

Allison Speer, MD, Surgery

Outstanding Teaching in ICM

Year I: Bartlett Saunders, MD

Year II: Howard Cantwell, MD, and Steve Morrison, MD

Outstanding Teaching in PPM

Richard Clark, MD, Otolaryngology

Mark Katz, MD, Family Medicine

Ankit Shah, MD, Pediatrics

Year I Faculty Teaching Awards

Gene Albrecht, PhD, Cell & Neurobiology

Rayudu Gopalakrishna, PhD, Cell & Neurobiology

Michael Habib, PhD, Cell & Neurobiology

Mikel Snow, PhD, Cell & Neurobiology

Clive Taylor, MD, PhD, Pathology

Year II Faculty Teaching Awards

Rayudu Gopalakrishna, PhD, Cell & Neurobiology

Enrique Ostrzega, MD, Medicine

Seth Politano, DO, Medicine

Mikel Snow, PhD, Cell & Neurobiology

Ruth Wood, PhD, Cell & Neurobiology

Year III Faculty Teaching Awards

Jenny Jaque, MD, OB/GYN

Kenji Inaba, MD, Surgery

Enrique Ostrzega, MD, Medicine

Seth Politano, DO, Medicine

Year IV Faculty Teaching Awards

Parul Bhatia, MD, Pediatrics

Eric Hsieh, MD, Medicine

Enrique Ostrzega, MD, Medicine

Non-Faculty Instructor Award

Year I: Ryan Casserly, MD

Year II: Sarah Norgaard, MD

Required Scholarly Project Outstanding Mentor Awards

Jon Detterich, MD, Pediatrics

Kenji Inaba, MD, Surgery

William Mack, MD, Neurological Surgery

Nerses Sanossian, MD, Neurology

The Wu Jieping Medical Foundation has made a gift of $100,000 to support research by Si-Yi Chen, MD, PhD, at USC Norris Comprehensive cancer Center and Dept. Molecular Microbiology and Immunology.

The gift will fund a pilot translational research project using next-generation DNA sequencing for personalized cancer therapy.

The foundation is a leading foundation in China established in 2002 in Beijing, China, under the administration of the Ministry of Health and in honor of Wu Jieping, a founder of modern China’s medicine and medical education.

Chen said he was “honored by the Wu Jjieping’s gift and belief in the translational research that is taking place in my lab.”

Rong Shi, director, oncology division of the foundation said “This is a first step toward a long-term collaboration with Professor Chen at USC Norris and the foundation.”

An international study co-led by Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) scientists and researchers in the United Kingdom has revealed 23 new genetic susceptibility locations indicating risk for prostate cancer.

The data study, analyzing more than 87,000 individuals of European, African, Japanese and Latino ancestry, is the largest of its kind and is the first that combines multiple studies across different ethnic populations.

“The goal of this research is to identify regions of the genome that contribute susceptibility to prostate cancer that could be used for understanding a man’s future risk of developing this disease,” said principal investigator Christopher Haiman, Sc.D., professor of preventive medicine, Keck School of Medicine of USC. “This research also emphasizes the importance of common genetic variation in the etiology of prostate cancer, and the importance of large-scale international genetics consortia.”

According to the American Cancer Society, prostate cancer is the second most common cancer among American men, behind skin cancer. It is estimated that nearly 30,000 men will die of prostate cancer and more than 233,000 new cases will be diagnosed in 2014.

Past genome-wide association studies identified 77 variants associated with prostate cancer risk. The additional 23 variants found in the new study “give us another piece in the puzzle,” Haiman said, and new targets for researchers looking into the causes of prostate cancer.

The combined studies that are part of this research have been conducted around the world over the past seven years. The research is chiefly funded by the NCI GAME-ON Consortium, formed to encourage interdisciplinary international collaborations.

The study, “A meta-analysis of 87,040 individuals identifies 23 new susceptibility loci for prostate cancer,” was published Sept. 14, 2014 in Nature Genetics.

— By Leslie Ridgeway

In a word, the old Edmondson Faculty Center, with its chocolate brown wood paneling, oversized leather chairs and dim lighting, was dark.

And so, when it closed for renovations the first order of business was to brighten the place up starting with the decor. Gone are the panels of stained glass that kept sunlight at bay for decades and, in its place, is a wall of glass behind which runs a perimeter of bamboo. Gone, too, is the wood paneling which has been replaced with light taupe painted walls, adorned with colorful pieces of abstract art.

The food has also been lightened up to match the new room. Christina Deocampo, assistant manager of the Edmondson Faculty Center, said the menu now features fresh, local ingredients that will change with the seasons.

Probably the biggest change is that they have done away with the membership rule and made the faculty center open to all faculty and senior staff who want to have a relaxed meal at the only sit down restaurant on the Health Sciences Campus.

Doing away with the membership was the only way to achieve another goal of the remodel, which was to create an elegant and welcome gathering spot for faculty, staff and even visitors to the Health Sciences Campus.

USC Hospitality also decided to expand the hours. While the Edmondson only served lunch in the past, it will now also be open for breakfast and for what they are calling lounge hours in the late afternoon. The bar, too, has a new menu including several locally-sourced craft beers and specially-crafted cocktails and mocktails with medically-themed names such as doctor’s orders.

Just about the only thing that hasn’t changed at the Edmondson Faculty Center is the name. Although almost everything about the Edmondson needed a change, a decision was made to keep the name as a nod to its past and its history on campus.

Reservations can be made on OpenTable.com or through the Edmondson’s Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TheEdmondson. For more information, visit: http://www.theedmondson.com/

— By Hope Hamashige

The Keck School of Medicine of USC Dean’s Recognition Ceremony was held Sept. 24 on campus.

Honorees included:

Outstanding Year I Course

Musculoskeletal

Outstanding Year II course

Cardiovascular

Outstanding Required Clerkship

Internal Medicine

Outstanding Selective/Elective

Emergency Medicine

Outstanding Teaching as a Resident

Rayhan Lal, MD, Pediatrics

Daniel Martinez, MD, Medicine

Barbara Rubino, MD, Medicine

Allison Speer, MD, Surgery

Outstanding Teaching in ICM

Year I: Bartlett Saunders, MD

Year II: Howard Cantwell, MD, and Steve Morrison, MD

Outstanding Teaching in PPM

Richard Clark, MD, Otolaryngology

Mark Katz, MD, Family Medicine

Ankit Shah, MD, Pediatrics

Year I Faculty Teaching Awards

Gene Albrecht, PhD, Cell & Neurobiology

Rayudu Gopalakrishna, PhD, Cell & Neurobiology

Michael Habib, PhD, Cell & Neurobiology

Mikel Snow, PhD, Cell & Neurobiology

Clive Taylor, MD, PhD, Pathology

Year II Faculty Teaching Awards

Rayudu Gopalakrishna, PhD, Cell & Neurobiology

Enrique Ostrzega, MD, Medicine

Seth Politano, DO, Medicine

Mikel Snow, PhD, Cell & Neurobiology

Ruth Wood, PhD, Cell & Neurobiology

Year III Faculty Teaching Awards

Jenny Jaque, MD, OB/GYN

Kenji Inaba, MD, Surgery

Enrique Ostrzega, MD, Medicine

Seth Politano, DO, Medicine

Year IV Faculty Teaching Awards

Parul Bhatia, MD, Pediatrics

Eric Hsieh, MD, Medicine

Enrique Ostrzega, MD, Medicine

Non-Faculty Instructor Award

Year I: Ryan Casserly, MD

Year II: Sarah Norgaard, MD

Required Scholarly Project Outstanding Mentor Awards

Jon Detterich, MD, Pediatrics

Kenji Inaba, MD, Surgery

William Mack, MD, Neurological Surgery

Nerses Sanossian, MD, Neurology

When asked why stem cell research matters, guests at this year’s Stem Cell Awareness Day gave many creative answers.

“Because it has unlimited potential to treat human diseases.”

“Because every part of us except the soul comes from stem cells.”

“Because it’s the future.”

Held on October 8 at the Eli and Edythe Broad CIRM Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC, this annual open house attracted more than 100 guests ranging from high school students to patients to alumni.

All the guests had the opportunity to enjoy stem cell-inspired paintings, sculpture and images; tour the labs; view research posters; participate in a wide array of fun activities; and nibble on light refreshments. They also mingled with researchers and faculty at this event hosted by USC Stem Cell and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

“Our public events give us the opportunity not only to educate our friends and supporters about the research that we do here at USC, but also to come face to face with the real-world significance of our work,” said Andy McMahon, PhD, FRS, who spearheads the university-wide USC Stem Cell initiative. “Whether it’s a patient hoping for a cure, a clinician waiting for better treatments or an average citizen dreaming of a brighter future, every person who comes to our events is a reminder of the urgency of our mission — to translate discoveries to cures.”

To view more photos from the event, visit flickr.com/photos/106541334@N04/sets/72157648762895182.

— By Cristy Lytal

A new model of delivering primary care studied by Keck Medicine of USC researchers has the potential to improve the health of patients with type 2 diabetes.

The model encourages doctors to be more of a “medical home” for their patients by being accessible to patients in person and by phone, developing good ongoing relationships with their patients, and being more proactive in helping coordinate care for patients with difficult health problems.

Gregory Stevens, PhD, associate professor of family medicine and preventive medicine and Anne Peters, MD, professor of medicine, Keck School of Medicine of USC and Leiyu Shi, professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University have found that health outcomes for people with diabetes can be improved by making relatively simple changes to the way doctors deliver primary care.

The researchers studied 540 Medicaid patients with type 2 diabetes in Los Angeles and compared how the patients described the care they received from their primary care doctors and how they described their own quality of life. They found:

• Patients who said their doctor was practicing more like a medical home (such as having more accessible hours and making sure that patients see the same doctor at each visit) had better health-related quality of life.

• For every 25 percent increase in medical home performance, patients reported an improvement in health that can be compared to eliminating one of the early complications of diabetes – vascular disease.

• The effect was strongest for women, with improvements in health that can be compared to eliminating diabetic retinopathy (vision problems). Women tend to ask more questions of their doctors and may benefit more from doctors who are more available to them.

Given that diabetes is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States, and is one of the most expensive chronic conditions, improving health outcomes for type 2 diabetes patients in a cost-effective way is a top priority for insurers including Medicare and Medicaid that see a disproportionate share of patients with diabetes. The USC-led study shows that doctors don’t have to rely on expensive technology or new drugs to greatly improve the health of patients with diabetes. Instead, they can offer more patient-friendly hours, take time to learn about their patients, and help coordinate referrals.

“I think primary care doctors have the tools they need to deliver more patient-focused care,” said Stevens, the principal investigator on the study “But our country also needs to support their efforts by training more primary care doctors in this model, rewarding doctors who adopt it, and ultimately reducing the incredible time pressure on doctors.”

This article was published online on Oct. 15, 2014 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine (JGIM). Funding for the research came from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.

Major changes are about to come to the corner of Alcazar and San Pablo Streets on the Health Sciences Campus, where several bulldozers are preparing the land for the construction of three new buildings.

Work has begun on a six-story parking structure that will provide an additional 1,200 parking spots for both staff and patients. The parking structure is going to be the first structure to rise from the space and will be the first completed. It is expected to be complete by the fall of 2015.

Student housing, offering many more students the opportunity to live on campus, will be the next building on two acres of the parcel. American campus communities is going to break ground on that project by the end of this year and will have the dorms ready by the fall of 2016. Once complete, there will be room for 450 students.

“The housing project is going have really nice amenities — a business center, swimming pool, fitness center and a 10,000-square foot child care center,” said Melissa Schild, executive director of land use and planning.

The third project, which will also be the last to get underway on the land, is going to be a 200-room Hyatt House hotel. Hyatt House is an extended-stay hotel that has apartment-style suites and a host of services for people who are spending weeks, rather than days, at the hotel.

There will be 15,000 square feet of conference space in the hotel and 15,000 square feet of retail. Hyatt is responsible for signing leases with retail tenants, none of which have been signed as yet. However, Schild said the hotel did ask campus officials to weigh in on the type of retail they would like in the hotel and they said they would like a restaurant.

Across the street, on the south side of Alcazar, another construction project is about to get underway on the Norris Healthcare Consultation Center, a seven-story building for outpatient oncology services, which should be complete by November of 2016.

— By Hope Hamashige

Keck School of Medicine Dean Carmen A. Puliafito and the Department of Otolayngology-Head and Neck Surgery hosted a USC-CHLA Center for Childhood Communication open house on Oct. 2 to showcase its world-class facilities to treat children with hearing loss and deafness. The event included tours of the facility, showcasing diagnostic equipment and therapy rooms.  Other guests included Gaston Kent, CEO of the John Tracy Clinic, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas and musician Richard Reed, who performed at the event.

Stephen B. Gruber (right), director of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Casey O’Connell, assistant professor of clinical medicine in the Jane Anne Nohl Division of Hematology and Center for the Study of Blood Diseases, addressed attendees at the USC Norris Ambassadors Friends and Family Luncheon on Oct. 16. The luncheon was attended by USC Associates and USC Norris Ambassadors, who helped promote and share the cancer center’s mission with family and friends. O’Connell’s presentation was titled “Breakthroughs in Cancer Care: How we are Reviving the Body’s Own Defenses Against Malignant Cells.”

Steven Rosenberg recently began treating a patient with bile duct cancer who had already undergone chemotherapy, but the treatment had failed to stop the cancer from spreading to her lung and liver. He treated her with a new form of immunotherapy, personalized to attack her tumor cells that are unique to her cancer. Today, a year later, her tumors are still shrinking.

Though some scientists have suspected for more than a century that boosting the body’s immune system could be an effective cancer treatment, it is only now being used to treat people. Three of the scientists whose pioneering work on T cells that made immunotherapy a reality — Rosenberg, Zelig Eshhar and James Allison — were named the winners of the 2014 Massry Prize.

All three recently delivered lectures at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and all three drove home their belief that the immunotherapy, already an important part of treating some types of cancer, will eventually change we treat all cancers.

Rosenberg, MD, PhD, chief of surgery at the National Cancer Institute, discussed treating several melanoma patients with immunotherapy. Rosenberg described treating his first melanoma patients with a treatment called adoptive cell therapy, which helped many of them achieve a complete regression.

One limitation of early immunotherapy was its ability to attack only some types of cancers. Adoptive cell transfer was developed by Eshhar, PhD, professor of immunology at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and is a technique to expand the range of T cells to attack cancers.

Allison, PhD, chair of the department of immunology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, exposed how cancer cells evade immune system attacks and developed antibodies that block this ability.

All agreed that much more research needs to be done, but this wholesale shift, from treating tumors to treating the immune system represents a major breakthrough in cancer treatment. Though it is still new, this treatment represents hope for a growing number of cancer patients.

The Meira and Shaul G. Massry Foundation established the international Massry Prize to recognize outstanding contributions to the biomedical sciences.

— By Hope Hamashige

David H. Petraeus, PhD, retired four-star general and former CIA director, visited the Health Sciences Campus (HSC) on Nov. 4 to see for himself what the view is like on the front lines of the life sciences revolution.

Petraeus — who also serves as the Judge Widney Professor at USC and Chairman of the KKR Global Institute — started his morning with a glimpse into the human brain. Faculty and students from the USC Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (LONI), the Eli and Edythe Broad CIRM Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC, and the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute shared innovative research highlights and progress with the general during a morning tour.

Highlighting the Brain

Judy Pa, PhD, a new assistant professor at LONI, discussed the future of disease mapping, sharing images depicting the contrast between the brains of healthy individuals and those afflicted by Alzheimer’s disease. LONI Assistant Professor Neda Jahanshad, PhD, steered the conversation to global brain data networks — specifically, the ENIGMA project initiated by Professor Paul Thompson, PhD. The project’s 300 researchers are sharing brain scans and genetic information from 30,000 individuals with the goal of “cracking the neuro-genetic code” underlying diseases as various as schizophrenia, addiction, HIV and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Given ENIGMA’s heavy computing and data storage demands, Petraeus asked, “You’re not running out of storage space? Even the CIA, we actually commercially contracted out. We just couldn’t build our own cloud fast enough.” ENIGMA’s computing and data storage needs are currently handled by USC’s new Institute for Neuroimaging and Informatics (INI), which houses LONI.

Petraeus’ curious mind next brought him to the new Choi Family Therapeutic Screening Facility, at the Eli and Edythe Broad CIRM Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC.

Finding Better Drugs

Center Director Andy McMahon, PhD, FRS, and Screening Director Justin Ichida, PhD, welcomed Petraeus to the facility, which is testing FDA-approved drugs on motor neurons formed by reprogramming skin cells from patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig’s disease. For reasons that are not yet understood, military veterans are more likely than civilians to suffer from this fatal disease.

Kimberley Babos, a graduate student in the Ichida lab, showed Petraeus how to put reprogrammed motor neurons into a robotic screening machine, which exposes them to 50,000 drugs a day. The Ichida lab has already found eight FDA-approved drugs that keep the motor neurons alive in the petri dishes — indicating possible therapeutic benefit.

“This is unbelievable — robots and computers,” said Petraeus.

Professor of Research Neil Segil, PhD, is collaborating with Ichida to apply a similar approach to hearing loss, which afflicts many who have served in the military. Suhasni Gopalakrishnan, PhD, a postdoctoral research associate in the Segil and Ichida labs, described how the team has used cellular reprogramming to create inner ear cells responsible for hearing. The team plans to use reprogrammed inner ear cells to search for drugs that protect against or reverse hearing damage.

“Have you gone back to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center?” asked Petraeus. “The hearing loss issue there is really important. That’s where we get our most seriously wounded combat veterans.”

Continuing his exploration of neural degeneration in its many forms, Petraeus headed to the lab of Berislav Zlokovic, MD, PhD, director of the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute.

Postdoctoral researcher Axel Montagne, PhD, described a new test for detecting blood brain barrier (BBB) leaks, which contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s disease. A drug called 3K3A-APC, currently in a Phase 2 clinical trial for stroke victims, has shown potential for stopping these leaks in Alzheimer’s patients.

Meeting the Troops

Petraeus did get a chance to relax a bit over lunch, which he shared with several students from the Keck School who are also members of the armed forces. After getting to know each of them, Petraeus shared a piece of advice that has served him well, which is to leave their intellectual comfort zones as often as possible and never fear bucking convention.

One of the students, Katie Ross, said this advice will stay with her as she finishes school and faces career decisions. “Being able to meet him is something I will remember for the rest of my life,” she said.

Petraeus also paid a visit to the USC Navy Trauma Training Center, a program of the U.S. Navy, the Keck School of Medicine of USC and LAC+USC Medical Center, which provides armed forces medical caregivers — including medics, nurses, physicians and Special Forces personnel — crucial first-hand experience treating traumatic injuries. While there, he swapped war stories with the nurses, doctors and medics from the U.S. Navy who spent several weeks at the training center at LAC+USC before being deployed.

The general himself is no stranger to battlefield injury. Petraeus, who spent most of his career in the U.S. Army with the 101st Airborne Division, broke his pelvis in a parachuting accident, and was shot in a training accident and required the insertion of a chest tube without anesthesia. The pain and severity of the second injury, he said, was so extreme that he wasn’t sure he would survive.

“I will never forget staring into the eyes of that Army medic,” recalled Petraeus. He added that doctors, nurses and medics in the field comprise the “most important army of one” in the military.

Three trauma experts who work closely with naval medical personnel at the training center accompanied Petraeus on the tour: Demetrios Demetriades, MD, PhD, FACS, chief of the division of trauma and critical care, Edward Netwon, MD, interim chairman of emergency medicine, and Philip Lumb, MB, BS, MCCM, chair of the Department of Anesthesiology.

Petraeus also had the rare opportunity to step into a Keck Hospital operating room, where Inderbir Gill, MD, executive director of the USC Institute of Urology and professor of the Catherine and Joseph Aresty Department of Urology at the Keck School, was performing a robotic surgery on a patient with prostate cancer. Petraeus, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2009, marveled at the advances being pioneered at Keck Medicine of USC.

Sharing Perspective

After a full day on campus, Petraeus told Carmen A. Puliafito, MD, MBA, dean of the Keck School of Medicine of USC, how impressed he was with HSC as a place of learning, healing and scientific discovery.

“This has to be the Delta force of health science campuses,” said Petraeus, as he finished the day by joining Puliafito on stage at Mayer Auditorium for a discussion as part of the Dean’s Distinguished Lecturer Series.

In a wide-ranging discussion, Petraeus and Puliafito discussed medicine and the military and what the two professions have in common. Petraeus noted that advances in medicine have helped many soldiers survive serious battlefield injuries, but that, too, has created challenges.

“So many come home with life-altering injuries, and their biggest challenge is not in the hospital. It is when that individual goes home and realizes that the rest of their life will be different,” explained Petraeus, best-known for leading the so-called surge strategy as commander of all U.S. troops in Iraq.

He also discussed the challenges posed by the high instance of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.

At the conclusion of his visit, Puliafito presented Petraeus with a token of his appreciation: an engraving of a painting depicting the death of Joseph Warren, who died fighting British forces at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Puliafito chose a depiction of Warren to remind Petraeus of his visit to HSC, because Warren was a commissioned general, as well as one of Boston’s finest doctors.

— By Hope Hamashige and Cristy Lytal

From left, Keck Parents Association Co-Presidents Dan and Carmel Gardner, Esther Geller, Ken Geller, John House, Polly Allen, Brent Allen and Steve Yamashita joined more than 300 Keck alumni, students, faculty and families for a pre-game picnic filled with good food, fun and Trojan spirit. Guests mingled as they enjoyed brunch provided by Pasadena restaurant Pie ‘n Burger plus a USC themed photo booth and games.