Findings
Houston, Texas
Volume 5, Issue 8
September 2007

Briefs

Wehrens selected Keck Foundation Young Scholar

Xander Wehrens, M.D., Ph.D., has been selected as one of only five researchers to receive the Keck Foundation's Distinguished Young Scholars in Medical Research award for 2007.

This award of up to $1 million over five years will support his research in defining the mechanisms of specialized protein complexes in excitable cells, such as heart muscle. Wehrens, an assistant professor of molecular physiology and biophysics, is the first BCM researcher to receive this award.

Through his research, Wehrens, who also serves as director of the Molecular Physiology and Biophysics Postdoctoral Training Program, hopes to explain the underlying causes of certain types of heart failure and cardiomyopathy.

Baker appointed to CDC panel

Carol J. Baker, M.D., professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology at BCM, has been appointed as vice chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She will serve a three-year term, ending in June 2010. This committee recommends use of vaccines for U.S. infants, children, adolescents and adults.

Center for Educational Outreach awarded Howard Hughes grant

Houston area schools will benefit from a new Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant awarded to the Center for Educational Outreach at Baylor College of Medicine.

The grant, totaling more than $700,000, will be awarded over a five-year period and will help support the Science Educational Leadership Fellows program and BioEd Online, two programs created by the Center for Educational Outreach.

The Science Educational Leadership Fellows program partners elementary school teachers and BCM graduate students and postdoctoral fellows for a two-year period. During that time, teachers take part in research at BCM, and scientists work with students in the classroom. An additional 50 elementary schools will now be able to take part in the program.

The grant will also allow for the expansion of professional development resources found on BioEd Online, www.bioedonline.org, a web site where teachers can learn about the latest science-related topics as well as find lessons for the classroom.

Brown named to Komen board

Powel Brown, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, has been named to the newly formed Susan G. Komen for the Cure Scientific Advisory Board. Powel is also associate director of cancer prevention and director of the cancer prevention and populations studies program at BCM's Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center.

The board is involved in designing research grant awards that focus on bringing laboratory advances to the clinic.