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PathWays

A monthly newsletter focusing on UW Medicine Pathology faculty, trainees and staff

May 2008
Volume 4, Issue 5

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Meeting and Event Calendar, News and Seminar Announcements

Please visit the UW Medicine Pathology homepage or the MyPath intranet site for information on public and internal Pathology news and events.

Visit the UW Medicine Events Calendar for up to date information on UW Medicine sponsored events and lectures.

Did you know that the News & Events section of MyPath is a great resource to learn about the internal department and university announcements that impact you? Check out MyPath regularly to stay in the loop.

School of Medicine Presents a New Series
Science in Medicine for Staff

Exciting new developments in medicine and science from the School of Medicine in language everyone understands. Come learn about what the School of Medicine is doing that affects you, your family and people beyond Washington. Take a break from the office and join us for an informative lecture and lunch.

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
Hogness Auditorium, A-420
Health Sciences Center
University of Washington
12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m.

Mary-Claire King, PhD
American Cancer Society Professor
Departments of Medicine (Medical Genetics) and
Genome Sciences
University of Washington School of Medicine

Genetics, Race, and Medicine

And for the rest of the Science in Medicine line up, go to the UW Medicine website.

Celebrate Diversity
Please the UW community on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 to commemorate 40 years of diversity at the UW. Celebrate with alumni and community friends in an afternoon of music, performances, exhibits and more.

Red Square
12-5 p.m. Music, food, performances, and exhibits
3:30 p.m. Program featuring UW President Mark Emmert

Kane Hall, Walker-Ames Room, Panel Discussions
12-1:30 p.m. Forty Years of Visionary Leadership with former OMA Vice
Presidents Samuel E. Kelly, Herman Lujan, Myron Apilado, and Nancy "Rusty" Barcelo
1:30-3 p.m. Student Leaders Reflect on Diversity

Visit the UW Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity website for more information.

The event is sponsored by the Office of the President, Office of the Provost, Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity, and the UW Alumni Association.

Winter 2008 Employee of the Quarter Nominations
Nominations are now being accepted for the Winter 2008 UW Medicine Pathology Employee of the Quarter. Please visit the Employee of the Quarter website to submit your nomination. The deadline to submit is Friday, May 23rd.

Save the Date Announcements

2008 UW Medicine Pathology Retreat
Friday-Saturday, September 12-13, 2008
Retreat Theme: Aging and Age-Related Diseases
Keynote Speaker: Dr. George Martin, UW Medicine Pathology
Faculty Sponsors: Drs. Tom Montine and Mike Laflamme
Sleeping Lady Mountain Retreat

2008 Holiday Party
Thursday, December 18, 2008 at the South Campus Center

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UW Medicine News

UW Med School Online News

The UW Med School Online News is a weekly publication of the University of Washington Health Sciences/UW Medicine News and Community Relations department. New issues are posted each Friday. Previous issues dating back to 1998 can be found in the archive and are also included in the search index.

UWMC News

UWMC Employee Recognition Events

Every year the UWMC Recognition T.E.A.M. hosts a series of events for UWMC employees, including the annual Summerfest picnic, a themed carnival in celebration of UWMC employees and their immediate families. Check out the events listed below and mark your calendars.

Summerfest
Save the Date: Friday, August 1, 2008
Click here to view photos from the 2007 Summerfest.

5th Annual UWMC Golf Tournament
Save the Date: Saturday, August 2, 2008
Put together a team of four and spend a day of fun on a golf course. Food, fun and prizes await.

UWMC Softball Tournament
Save the Date: Saturday, August 16, 2008
UWMC Employees are once again invited to create a team, but this time it's for a great day of softball. This event brings a numbers of folks from around the hospital, and family members can join in the fun. The requirement is to have a minimum of 5 team members from UWMC; the rest of the team can be family and friends.

Pumpkin Carving Contest
Save the Date: October 2008
Each department or unit can pick up a pumpkin to carve for the contest. This is a contest that allows employees to show off their creative skills. This event allows everybody to joining in the fun.

Community News

Native American Education Outreach Program
Thirteen Native American students from the Chief Leschi School in Puyallup visited UW Medicine Pathology on April 11^th as part of the Nelson Fausto and Ann De Lancey Native American Education Outreach Program. Chief Leschi is a tribal school operated by the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, serving the educational needs of area Native American families.

The visit was scheduled to coincide with several Native American events at UW, including the First Nations' Pow Wow at the Bank of America Arena and NACOE's annual Faculty Development Seminar. The events provided the students an opportunity to observe and participate in Native American cultural activities on campus, exposed them to UW Native American faculty, trainees and staff, and helped demystify career and educational opportunities available at the University of Washington.

In addition to the events listed above, the schedule will also include the following activities and mentoring opportunities:

• Burke Museum meet and greet with tour of the People of the Plateau exhibit
• Autopsy Tour
• Cytogenetics Tour
• Diabetes and Obesity Center Research Lab Tour
• ISIS Tour
• NACOE dinner and networking at the Waterfront Activities Center
• First Nations' Pow Wow at Bank of America Arena

Please feel free to Steve Berard if you'd like to learn more about the Nelson Fausto and Ann De Lancey Native American Education Outreach Program.

Path People

Employee of the Quarter

Please congratulate Ron Hanson on the occasion of his selection as the Fall 2007 UW Medicine Pathology Employee of the Quarter. This much-deserved honor recognized Ron's exceptional performance in the Murry Lab last fall, but was also clearly emblematic of his entire tenure with UW Medicine Pathology. Most noteworthy has been Ron's work in support of Drs. Earl Benditt and Chuck Murry, helping the former establish the department during its infancy, and as an invaluable resource in the development of the UW Medicine South Lake Union research facility with the latter. Ron's selection reflects not just his most recent contributions and accomplishments, but also acknowledged how much he has met to the institution and the department throughout his distinguished career - a career spanning over four decades of exemplary service for the University of Washington and the Department of Pathology. Pictured with Ron is Dr. Chuck Murry.

The following other UW Medicine Pathology employees were also nominated for the award:

• Carol Arnold, HMC Grants & Contracts Manager
• Kelly Hudkins-Loya, Alpers Lab Research Scientist
• Lori Savage, UWMC Program Assistant
• Eric Broeren, UWMC Assistant to the Director
• Karl Groen, UWMC Histotech

SIAM UW Undergraduate Poster Contest Winner
Susan Massey from Kristin Swanson's Lab recently won the SIAM UW (Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics) poster contest. Susan's award-winning poster landed her and all expenses paid trip to the annual SIAM conference in classy San Diego this July!

Below are details about the contest and Susan's poster abstract:

Undergraduate Research in Applied and Computational Mathematics University of Washington Chapter of SIAM (Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics) Poster Contest. Undergraduates at the University of Wahington are invited to participate in a research session. Travel and Registration cost to the Undergraduate Poster Session at the SIAM 2008 Annual Meeting (San Diego July 8 2008) will be given to the best poster demonstrating research done by the undergraduate in Applied or Computational Mathematics.

Susan's Abstract

Parameter Sensitivity Investigation of a Mathematical Model of Glioma Tumorigenesis Mediated by Platelet-Derived Growth Factor
Susan Massey, Senior, Mathematics
McNair Scholar, Boeing Scholar, Amgen Scholar
Mentor: Kristin Swanson, Pathology

Glioma is the most prevalant form of primary brain tumor in adults. Despite all possible treatment attempts, including aggressive surgical resection, these tumors are uniformly fatal. Dr. Peter Canoll at Columbia University has demonstrated that rats develop brain tumors closely resembling human gliomas when their glial progenitor cells are injected with a retrovirus expressing platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF). Most notably, at 17 days post infection only 30% of the tumor cells are infected progenitor cells—the other 70% are malignant uninfected progenitor cells, recruited to the tumor by interactions with PDGF. Using the empirical data collected by his lab, we have developed a mathematical model to describe the observed tumor growth in the rat experiment. We used a sensitivity analysis technique incorporating latin hypercube sampling (LHS) and partial rank correlation coefficients (PRCC) to vary parameters against each other and determine which parameters in the model are most influential upon the ratio of uninfected progenitor cells to total (infected and uninfected progenitors) in the tumor. Our investigation revealed that the two most influential parameters affecting the observed tumor growth pattern are proliferation rate of infected progenitors (and thus the amount of extra cellular PDGF available) and rate of consumption of PDGF by nearby uninfected progenitors. This model allows us to predict what would happen if the retrovirus was changed so that the PDGF production by each infected cell increased or decreased. Future work will focus on analyzing the model to look for spatial migration patterns of tumor cell growth influenced by PDGF to compare with observational studies tracking the migration of individual cells over several hours.

Janet Miller

Corinne Fligner, M.D., Director of Autopsy and After Death Services, just informed the department that Janet Miller is retiring. Below is Dr. Fligner's announcement:

As many of you may have heard, Janet Miller, our UWMC Autopsy Coordinator, has decided to retire at the end of May, after more than 30 years working in Anatomic Pathology at University of Washington Medical Center, Harborview Medical Center, and the King County Medical Examiner's Office.

For the past 17 years, Janet has played an important part in the organization and implementation of the many activites of the UWMC Autopsy and Decedent Affairs Service. She been integral in the training of many residents in autopsy pathology, and has assisted many grieving families at the time of their loved one's death. I have had the privilege to work with Janet for over 25 years during my training and career, and have enjoyed our partnership at UWMC in developing an autopsy and decedent affairs program which has benefited from her knowledge and consideration.

We will be having a retirement celebration later this month, and hope to put together a memory book for Janet. We hope that you will join us as we congratulate Janet on her career in Pathology, and wish her well in her future endeavors.

Happy Anniversary
Li-Chuan Huang: 25 years at UW. Li-Chuan is a Research Scientist in the Raines Lab.

New Residents
Click here to learn a little bit about the new residents and fellows that will be joining us soon.

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HR News: Work/Life Events

Emergency Officer

Greg Lawrence, HR Manager, successfully guided Health Sciences Center faculty and staff through the annual earthquake drill last month. Needless to say Greg was easy to follow as he skillfully escorted employees out of the building to the prearranged meeting location. Please check with your supervisor to review emergency plans in your area.

PCS News

Watch this space next month for big news regarding the newest addition to the PCS family.

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Transportation News

UW Light Rail Station
Check this space for regular updates on the Sound Transit University Light Rail Station project.

Mercer Street Mess
The Seattle City Council just green lighted a transportation project to turn Mercer Street in the South Lake Union area into a two-way boulevard.

South Lake Union Trolley Expansion
The Seattle Department of Transportation recently proposed expanding the South Lake Union Trolley service, adding up to four new lines including one that would extend the existing South Lake Union line all the way to the University District.

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