Findings
Houston, Texas
Volume 6, Issue 9
October 2008

News briefs

Todd to lead BCM's Department of Medicine

Robert Todd, M.D., has been named chair of The Margaret M. and Albert B. Alkek Department of Medicine at BCM. Todd, an internationally recognized expert in cancer research, education and clinical care, currently holds the Frances and Victor Ginsberg Professorship of Hematology/Oncology and serves as the interim chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School and Health System. He will take on his new role Dec. 1.

Todd received his undergraduate, medical and scientific doctorate degrees from Duke University. He completed residency training at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Harvard Medical School, a clinical fellowship in oncology at the Sidney Farber Cancer Institute (SFCI) and a post-doctoral fellowship in the Division of Tumor Immunology of the SFCI, before joining the faculty of Harvard Medical School. In 1984, he moved to the University of Michigan where he has served as associate vice president for research and the chief of the division of hematology/oncology within the department of internal medicine.

U.S., Tanzania governments partner with BIPAI to open new centers

The United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief announced a grant award to Baylor International Pediatric Aids Initiative of $22.5 million over five years to support the operations of two centers of excellence and associated satellite clinic facilities in Tanzania, a country hit hard by HIV/AIDS.

The Tanzanian government is working in partnership with BIPAI to establish the two centers in Mbeya and Mwanza and to ensure their integration into existing public health programs. The centers are expected to provide care directly to at least 15,000 children. Another 4,400 children will receive care in associated satellite facilities.

BIPAI has secured additional funding totaling more than $6 million for the Tanzania program from several private donors, including Abbott Fund, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Jan and Dan Duncan and the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word.

NIH Director's New Innovator Awards

Jue (Jade) D. Wang, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular and human genetics, was one of 31 scientists nationwide to receive the 2008 National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Awards, a program to support young scientists early in their careers. This is the second year for the NIH New Innovator Awards Program and the second year a BCM researcher has received it.

The award was created to support a small number of new investigators of exceptional creativity who propose bold and highly innovative new research approaches that have the potential to produce a major impact on broad, important problems in biomedical and behavioral research. Wang will conduct research to identify new ways that the cell controls how DNA is copied, which will give insights into many diseases and treatments.