The Cancer Center Radiation Oncology Department received accreditation by the American College of Radiology (ACR), a distinction only 10 percent of such departments across the nation have achieved. In their extensive review conducted in February, the ACR called UNM Cancer Center’s radiation oncology services “an exemplary practice.”
Dr. Karen Cowden Dahl received a grant nearing $1 million to support her work as a basic cancer researcher in the College of Pharmacy at the UNM Health Sciences Center. The K99/R00 grant, also called the Howard Temin Pathway to Independence Award in Cancer Research, is one of most coveted grants in Cowden Dahl’s field.
Funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the grant will be used over a period of five years and will help postdoctoral researchers transition to independent investigators.
The Mind Research Network (MRN) received a two-year, $455,000 grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NIH) to study high-frequency brain activity in infants with epilepsy.
Epilepsy is usually treated with medications. When pharmaceuticals are ineffective surgery is required, which involves locating the seizure onset zone by opening the skull.
This award will provide UNM’s Dr. Julia Stephen with funds to study a non-invasive procedure to identify the onset zone.
The School of Medicine was named 2008 recipient of the prestigious Spencer Foreman Award for Outstanding Community Service by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). The award honors member institutions that have a longstanding, major institutional commitment to addressing community needs and have programs that go well beyond the traditional role of academic medicine to reach communities.
“With a commitment to serving the entire state, the University of New Mexico School of Medicine is truly on the frontier of community service, pioneering the ‘bottom-up’ approach to community outreach,” wrote AAMC officials.
The award cited several innovative programs that support UNM’s mission of serving the state's communities through direct patient care, training and exploring the relevant causes of both health and disease including the UNM HEROs program, the Health Commons initiative, and Project ECHO.