Kudos

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Awards and Honors

Robert Emery, DrPH, assistant vice president for Safety, Health, Environment and Risk Management and associate professor of Occupational Health at the UT School of Public Health was recognized as on the top 100 graduates of the East Carolina University College of Health and Human Performance at a ceremony in Greenville, NC on Feb. 22, 2008, marking the college's 100th year in existence. Emery graduated from the environmental health graduate program in 1991.

University of Texas Medical School at Houston Dean Giuseppe Colasurdo, M.D., was honored with the Order of Minerva from the Universitá degli Studi "G. D'Annunzio," in Chieti, Italy in January. Since 1986, the university has bestowed the award to national and international personalities who "have contributed significantly to the advancement of science, culture and economy." Italian journalist and author Roberto Gervaso also received the award this year. Dean Colasurdo graduated summa cum laude from the university's medical school in 1985.

Colasurdo completed his residency at The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and his fellowship at the University of Colorado Health Science Center and the National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver. He is chair of the Department of Pediatrics and physician-in-chief at Children's Memorial Hospital and was named dean and H. Wayne Hightower Distinguished Professor of the Medical School Sept. 1, 2007.

Presentations

Alan C. Swann, M.D., the Pat Rutherford Jr. Chair in Psychiatry, professor and vice chair for research in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (MS), spoke at the 8th Annual Samuel B. Guze Symposium on Alcoholism at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO, on Feb. 21.

In recent months, Nobel Laureate Ferid Murad, M.D., director emeritus of The Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases, has been on national and international circuit a bit more than usual. He has given a number of lectures that include: the Gottlieb Lecture at The University of Texas-Austin Graduate School of Biological Sciences; the Ulysses Lecture at the University College, Dublin, Ireland; a keynote lecture at the Cyclic GMP meeting in Dresden, Germany; a plenary lecture at the International Shock Wave Therapy meeting in Toronto, Canada; and a lecture at the Nobel laureate meeting in Lindau, Germany.

Murad also has served on various international committees. Perhaps the most notable is the Search Committee for a President of the new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. With this task nearing completion, he is now on a second Committee of the University to identify a Provost, Vice President, Deans and Research Institute Directors. He also has recently been elected as a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, one of the most prestigious scientific recognitions in China.

Publications

"Oxidative stress enzymes are required for DAF-16-mediated immunity due to generation of reactive oxygen species by Caenorhabditis elegans" was recently published in Genetics by Danielle Garsin, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics (MMG); Violeta Chavez, MMG graduate student, and others.

"Postgenomic Adventures with Rhodobacter sphaeroides" was published in the October issue the Annual Review of Microbiology by Chris Mackenzie, Ph.D., of assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Medical School (MS); Samuel Kaplan, Ph.D., professor and chair in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, and coauthors from the MMG department.

"A sweet sensor for size-conscious bacteria" was recently published in Cell by William Margolin, Ph.D., professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, MS, and Daisuke Shiomi, Ph.D., a postdoctoral student in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics.