Investigational drug enables earlier hospital discharge

By Jim Dryden

A team of researchers led by anesthesiologists at the School of Medicine has found that an investigational drug helps patients recover bowel function more quickly after abdominal surgery, leading to less post-operative illness and quicker discharge from the hospital.

The researchers say the drug, ADL 8-2698, blocks the actions of morphine and other opioids in the intestines without inhibiting their ability to relieve pain. The finding is reported in this week's New England Journal of Medicine.

"Return of bowel function is one of the key indicators of recovery following surgery," said principal investigator Andrea Kurz, M.D., assistant professor and director of the Division of Clinical Research in the Department of Anesthesiology at the medical school as well as associate director of the Outcomes Research Institute, an international group of researchers. "One of the ways that we know a person is about ready to go home is that they pass gas, and that indicates their bowel function is returning to normal."

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Future physicians Medical student and conference co-coordinator Rita Kwan talks with Rob Levy, legislative director of the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) at the Eric P. Newman Education Center Sept. 22. Students from the School of Medicine and other medical schools in the Midwest reflected on the recent terrorist tragedies at AMSA's annual regional meeting. Through lectures and workshops, they discussed a variety of topics, including their role as aspiring physicians in a country facing the prospect of war and human rights abuses in Afghanistan. Students at the conference also honored Paul Ambrose, M.D., a former AMSA legislative director who died Sept. 11 on American Airlines Flight 77.

Longer Life Center to present research findings

University faculty will gather Oct. 3 at 2:45 p.m. at the Eric P. Newman Education Center to discuss several research projects funded by the Longer Life Foundation. The foundation's activities are coordinated on campus through the Longer Life Center in the School of Medicine's Division of Health Behavior Research.

The Longer Life Foundation is a cooperative effort between the medical school and the Reinsurance Group of America. It funds independent research into the effects of changing medical and public-health practices on human longevity, quality of life and rates of disease in specific populations.

Over the last three years, the foundation has sponsored nearly $700,000 in grants to University faculty. The foundation's board of governors includes William A. Peck, M.D., executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the medical school.

Drug abuse program seeks fellows

By Jim Dryden

Researchers at the School of Medicine have received a major federal grant to help train more scientists to investigate the factors that contribute to alcohol, drug and nicotine dependence and abuse.

Neuroscientist Theodore J. Cicero, Ph.D., vice chancellor for research and professor of neuropharmacology in psychiatry, has received a five-year, $2.2 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to direct a multi-disciplinary training program in drug abuse. The grant renews a training program that has been under way at the medical school for more than a decade.

In the program, eight post-doctoral fellows receive two to three years of training in one of several areas. The training program places a special emphasis on providing research training for physicians because of the national shortage of badly needed clinical researchers.

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Spread of West Nile Virus tracked by researchers

By Darrell E. Ward

The arrival of the West Nile Virus in the United States --and now the Midwest --presents a rare opportunity to study how viruses can spread across the nation from a single, well-defined location, according to Henry V. Huang, Ph.D., associate professor of molecular microbiology at the School of Medicine. Huang has closely followed the dispersal, detection and surveillance of West Nile Virus.

"The introduction of West Nile Virus into the United States is a unique experiment," Huang said. "Usually when public-health officials identify a new virus in a country, the virus already is widely dispersed. It's rare to have an opportunity to follow the spread of a virus from a point source. So we can use this to raise questions about how we track the spread of a microbe and identify the factors involved in its spread."

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Huang

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