Understanding PTSD - Uniformed Services University of the Health ...

The Official USU Newsletter 

Volume 7, Issue 6 

March 30, 2012 

www.usuhs.mil

Sharon Willis 

Deputy Vice President for External 

Affairs and Managing Editor 

Christine Creenan-Jones 

Contributing Writer 

Lori Fields 

Layout and Design 

Production 

Editorial content is edited, prepared 

and provided by the USU Office of 

External Affairs unless otherwise 

indicated. The Pulse staff may 

include or exclude articles based 

upon news value, impact on the 

university and space availability. 

Submissions 

The Pulse will be published 

bi-weekly on Mondays. The 

deadline for submissions is at 4 p.m. 

Tuesday prior to the publication 

date. Submissions can be sent to 

swillis@usuhs.mil or by calling 

301-295-3578. 

Photo by Sharon Willis 

On the cover 

Army Col. (Dr.) David Benedek and Dr. Lei 

Zhang, from USU’s Center for the Study of 

Traumatic Stress, are conducting a research 

study to identify potential biomarkers for 

PTSD. (See story, page 6.) 

2 The Pulse The Official USU Newsletter 

Esteemed surgeon delivers 

27th Annual Packard Lecture 

By Christine Creenan-Jones 

(Pictured, left to right) Dr. Jeffrey Longacre, interim VP for External Affairs, USU; Dr. 

Murray Brennan, 27th Annual David Packard Lecturer; Col. (Dr.) Craig Shriver, director, 

Comprehensive Cancer Center; and Dr. Tonie Hooper, president, USU Faculty Senate. 

Renowned surgeon and researcher, 

Murray F. Brennan, M.D., F.A.C.S., was 

the guest speaker for the 2012 David 

Packard Lecture, sponsored by the USU 

Faculty Senate, with support from the 

Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the 

Advancement of Military Medicine, on 

March 15. His presentation,”Lessons 

Learned as a Surgical Oncologist,” drew 

inspiration from his bench and bedside 

experiences at places like Harvard 

Medical School, the National Institutes 

of Health and Memorial Sloan-Kettering 

Cancer Center, where he currently 

serves as the Benno C. Schmidt Chair 

in Clinical Oncology, Director of the 

International Center and Vice President 

for International Programs. 

While speaking at USU, Brennan 

also emphasized the importance of 

mentorship in medical professions, the 

evolution of cancer care and the need 

for objective approaches when treating 

vexing diseases like cancer. 

“We are prisoners of our own 

biases,” said Brennan, who believes 

today’s physicians are too narrowly 

focused on finding data to support 

their personal objectives. Instead, 

providers should weigh the benefits 

and consequences of treatment, use 

critical eyes when evaluating research 

and find better ways to educate 

patients, he continued. 

Brennan’s words—validated by 

decades of groundbreaking work— 

resonated with the crowd, including 

Army Colonel (Dr.) Craig Shriver, 

director of the Comprehensive Cancer 

Center, who provided opening remarks 

for this year’s Packard Lecture. 

“It’s not hyperbole to state that Dr. 

Murray Brennan is a pioneer and 

living legend,” Shriver said. “It’s fitting 

that we honor him at USU on its 40th 

anniversary, because his influence 

on military surgery has been nearly 

unprecedented amongst surgeons of 

the modern era.” 

Dr. Brennan has trained several 

military physicians throughout his 

illustrious career, including four 

program directors and several combat 

doctors. His exceptional career and 

unique expertise were major reasons 

why Brennan was invited to speak 

during the Packard Lecture, one of 

USU’s most prestigious academic 

events, named after the university’s 

second president, former Deputy 

Secretary of Defense and co-founder of 

the Hewlett-Packard Company. 

Courtesy Photo

Understanding PTSD 


Diagnosing posttraumatic stress 

disorder is difficult. Servicemembers 

don’t always report their symptoms or 

make the proper connections between 

emotional trauma and the body’s 

response to extreme stress, especially 

since negative physical reactions often 

times occur weeks, months or even 

years later. 

In these unreported cases, clinicians 

have little recourse, because 

there are no effective laboratory tests 

for identifying PTSD. But, Army 

Colonel David Benedek, M.D., and 

Lei Zhang, M.D., researchers at USU’s 

Center for the Study of Traumatic 

Stress, are working to improve screening 

standards by identifying potential 

biomarkers for PTSD in the 

Traumatic Stress and Biomarkers in a 

Military Population Study. 

Their research is already yielding 

promising results. Benedek, Zhang and 

their CSTS co-investigators found a 

measurable difference in p11 mRNA 

protein levels between soldiers reporting 

PTSD symptoms and blood samples 

from patients with other disorders– a 

distinction that could lead to a major 

breakthrough in diagnostic assessment. 

“If biomarkers are identified, 

physicians will be able to definitively 

diagnose PTSD through blood and 

saliva samples, instead of using more 

ambiguous symptom checklists and 

patient self-reports,” he said. “Furthermore, 

biomarkers will help us detect 

the PTSD earlier so treatment can 


USU to host Dining Out 

The Uniformed Services University 

of the Health Sciences Dining 

Out will be held on Saturday, April 

14, 2012, from 6:00-11:00 p.m., in 

the USU dining room. This year 

the featured guest speaker is Air 

Force Maj. Gen. Kimberly Siniscalchi, 

the Assistant Force Surgeon 

General, Medical Force Development 

and Assistant Surgeon 

General, Nursing Services. 

Ticket prices will be: E1-E9: $55; 

O1-O3: $75; O4+: $80. Tickets for 

guests are the same price as their 

military sponsor. Tickets for civilian 

attendees not accompanied by a 

military sponsor are the same as the 

04+ price listed. Tickets will be sold 

each day in the lobby of Building B 

from 11:30 a.m. -1:00 p.m. 

begin sooner and troops may begin to 

heal faster.” 

Improved diagnostics and therapies 

for PTSD is one of military medicine’s 

biggest, most pressing goals right 

now. The debilitating anxiety disorder 

affects thousands of people each year, 

and susceptibility increases for people 

with combat experience–exactly the 

population Benedek is evaluating at 

Ft. Bragg, a major deployment hub in 

North Carolina. 

“Military members willingly go into 

harm’s way to protect our country, so it’s 

our job as uniformed medical professional 

to find better, more innovative 

ways to help them feel better when they 

return home emotionally or physically 

injured,” he said. 

Part of this effort includes identifying 

biomarkers for resilience. Trauma 

effects people differently, even servicemembers 

in the same platoon who 

share similar frontline experiences. 

“Some people develop PTSD, others 

don’t. Understanding both sides of 

the paradox is an important part of 

our research,” Benedek said. “If we 

know what keeps some people healthy, 

perhaps then, we can prevent the PTSD 

from occurring in the first place.” 

March 30, 2012 3

David Scott, the groundbreaker next door 


David Scott, PhD, vice chair for 

research in the USU Department of 

Medicine, has been shaping science 

in the world’s best laboratories for 

decades now. His work – immune 

tolerance research – has led to many 

breakthroughs, especially for autoimmune 

diseases, conditions where the 

body destroys normal tissue because it 

can’t distinguish between helpful and 

harmful cells. 

Scott is continuing this important 

work at USU, and he’s crossing boundaries, 

too. The New Jersey native, an 

immunologist by training, is collaborating 

with the nation’s leading gene therapists. 

Together, they’re finding ways 


to “reeducate” the immune system, so 

helpful proteins aren’t damaged by the 

body’s natural defenses. 

“Understanding how the body 

turns responses on and off is helpful 

for many different reasons, including 

the potential for researchers 

to develop life-saving vaccines for 

autoimmune diseases, which affect 

millions of people around the world 

each year,” he said. 

Scott is growing other groundbreaking 

research at USU, too. He teaches 

effective grant-writing skills – an 

important, but daunting part of the 

research process. Scott also mentors 

faculty members at the university and 

Photo by Thomas C. Balfour 

Photo by Thomas C. Balfour 

encourages multidisciplinary partnerships, 

both on campus and at nearby 

research laboratories. 

“I’ve really enjoyed being part of 

USU’s faculty, they’re truly an incredible 

group,” he said. “Developing new 

methods for expanding the university’s 

already strong research programs 

is exciting, too. Good investigators 

make great instructors, and military 

medicine needs both.” 

For Scott, his 2010 faculty appointment 

at USU was both a homecoming 

and a calling. The Bethesda doctor 

used to travel more than 40 miles 

every day to his job at the University 

of Maryland, where he worked as the 

associate director of the Center for 

Vascular and Inflammatory Diseases. 

“Working in Baltimore was great, 

but I wanted to be closer to my home, 

and I really respected the powerful 

mission at USU,” he said. “I felt like I 

was part of something honorable and 

much bigger than my research alone 

when I came here.” 

An important part of the university 

thread now, Scott bicycles to work 

most mornings, another one of his 

passions. The 15-minute ride gives 

Scott enough time to clear his head 

before another busy day of groundbreaking 

science begins. 

Ultrasound Training 

Navy Reserve Lt. (Dr.) Tress Goodwin 

(far right) teaches bedside renal 

ultrasound to the first-year USU 

medical student class. Hands-on 

ultrasound training complements and 

reinforces the teaching of anatomy, 

physiology, pathology, and medical 

decision-making, and it provides a 

natural bridge between basic science 

education and the clinical practice of 

medicine. Bedside ultrasound training 

has been integrated into all of the 

pre-clerkship modules in the new USU 

medical student curriculum.

USU License Plate Available to 

Maryland Residents 

By Sharon Willis 

If you’ve ever been behind a car 

with organizational license plates and 

thought, ‘I wish USU had those,’ your 

wish has been granted. 

USU students, staff, faculty and 

alumni who are residents of the State 

of Maryland are eligible to apply for 

a Uniformed Services University of 

the Health Sciences organizational 

license plate. 

The license plate was actually developed 

several years ago and a look 

around the USU parking garage will 

show a number of cars already sporting 

one, including President Charles Rice’s 

personal vehicle. 

“This year marks our 40th Anniversary. 

We have accomplished so much 

over the past four decades for which 

we can be extraordinarily proud,” said 

Rice. “I can’t think of a simpler way to 

show your pride and support for the 

university every day than through USU 

organizational license plates.” 

The Motor Vehicle Administration 

(MVA) fee for the USU license plate 

is $25 per vehicle. They are available 

for passenger cars, motorcycles, 

multi-purpose vehicles, and trucks 

with a one-ton or less manufacturer’s 

rate capacity. 

The organizational plates are only 

available for Maryland residents. 

Unfortunately, the District of Columbia 

does not offer organizational plates 

and the State of Virginia requires a 

minimum of 350 confirmed interested 

residents before it will establish an 

organizational plate. 

Anyone interested in applying for 

the plate, which shows the university 

logo and the letters ‘U-S-U‘ followed 

by the MVA-assigned sequential tag 

number, must pick up the Application/Certification 

for Organizational 

License Plates from the Office of 

External Affairs, Room A1025. The 

form must be signed by Ms. Sandra 

Carbajal, the USU coordinator for 

the organizational plate, and must 

include the vehicle’s title number on 

it. Once Ms. Carbajal has signed the 

application form, interested employees 

can apply for the plates in person 

at any of the MVA’s full service branch 

offices (http://www.mva.maryland. 

gov/hours-Locations/default.asp). 

The request will then be forwarded 

to the Glen Burnie MVA office for 

processing. Applications may also 

be mailed to the MVA’s Specialty Tag 

Unit in the Glen Burnie office: MVA 

Specialized Tag Unit, 6601 Ritchie 

Highway, Glen Burnie, MD 21062, or 

taken to an MVA licensed tag and title 

service (http://www.mva.maryland. 

gov/Vehicle-Services/REG/titleagents. 

htm), for assistance with applying. 

Organizational plates cannot be 

ordered online. 

USU Research Days 2012 

May 14-15 

Save The Date 

Visit www.hjf.org to 

One Year Later A Look 

Back at the Aftermath 

of the Tohoku 

Earthquake, Tsunami 

By Helen Hocknell, 

NSA Bethesda Journal staff writer 

Air Force Capt. Brian Livingston 

and Navy Lt.jg. Lee Alleman 

spend a lot of time preparing for 

situations they hope will never 

happen. Livingston and Alleman 

are health physicists assigned to 

the Medical Military Operations 

(MMO) department of the Armed 

Forces Radiobiology Research 

Institute (AFRRI). 

On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude 

earthquake off the eastern coast 

of Japan caused the primary power 

source for the nuclear reactors at the 

Fukushima Daiichi power plant to 

shut down. Minutes later, a 20-foot 

tsunami took out the backup generators. 

The resulting cooling system 

failure, explained Livingston, meant 

the beginning of the largest nuclear 

disaster since Chernobyl. 

During the aftermath, units from 

all branches of the U.S. military 

responded to the crisis, providing 

humanitarian aid, scientific expertise, 

and military assistance. 

Livingston and Alleman 

deployed to Japan with the Medical 

Radiobiology Advisory Team 

(MRAT) following the Tohoku 

earthquake and tsunami. The two 

were part of a team helping U.S. 

troops deal with the aftereffects 

of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear 

plant incident. They assisted 

the Consequence Management 

Advisory Team (CMAT) of the 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency 

(DTRA), which also provides 

security oversight to prepare for the 

possibility of chemical or biological 

attacks at major events like 

presidential inaugurations and the 

Super Bowl. 

submit abstracts by March 23 and register for events. Continued to page 6 

March 30, 2012 5

Tohoku Earthquake 

Continued from page 5 

“It was pretty much panic for the 

first two weeks,” said Livingston. “The 

barrier between the reactor and the 

environment was completely compromised, 

so we had to assume that a 

complete meltdown was a possibility.” 

Alleman said their main focus was 

to make sure the U.S. troops providing 

humanitarian assistance to the 

Japanese civilians were kept safe, but 

that it was difficult working with 

limited information. 

“Initially, we weren’t sure what was 

coming out of the reactors, so it was 

unclear day to day whether we should 

expect another plume to be released,” 

said Alleman. Because of the uncertainty, 

they recommended precautions, such as 

taking potassium iodide to protect the 

thyroid from the radio iodide present 

in the “warm zone” - the area around 

the reactors deemed to have potentially 

dangerous levels of radiation. 

Dr. Regina Armstrong, director of 

USU’s Center for Neuroscience and 

Regenerative medicine, discusses brain 

function with a group of students from 

throughout the country who were in 

Baltimore, Md., recently attending the 

American Society for Neurochemistry’s 

High School Science Day. The students 

also included the winners of the USA 

National Brain Bee. 



Although the situation was chaotic 

at first, Alleman said it was an exciting 

opportunity to put their expertise 

to good use. The main mission of the 

MMO team is to teach troops all over 

the world about the medical effects 

of ionizing radiation, whereas MRAT 

prepares to act as an advisory team 

in the event of a large-scale nuclear 

incident - whether that’s a power plant 

failure caused by a natural disaster or 

a terrorist attack. 

“We spend a lot of time preparing 

for things we hope never happen,” 

said Livingston. Fortunately, the 

radiation levels resulting from the 

Fukushima Daiichi plant cooling 

system failure were fairly low. 

Although the official data has yet 

to be confirmed, Livingston said no 

U.S. troops were exposed to more 

than a fraction of what the Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission sets as the 

allowable limit for annual 

radiation exposure in an occupational 

environment. 

“I was there for a month and a 

half, and got a larger exposure flying 

on a plane,” said Livingston, who 

explained that we are constantly 

exposed to low levels of naturallyoccurring 

background radiation. We 

receive slightly more cosmic radiation 

from the sun when we’re at a higher 

altitude, whether we’re in a plane or at 

the top of a mountain range. 

AFRRI hosted a symposium 

on the U.S. military response to 

the Fukushima Daiichi radiological 

incident March 27-29 at Uniformed 

Services University. Experts from 

various services and participating 

government agencies discussed their 

roles in the crisis, radiation detection, 

force protection and 

risk communication. 

Ms. Mariam Masheeb, Study Volunteer Recruitment Manager with USU’s Center 

for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine (CNRM), speaks to a scientist 

attending the recent American Society for Neurochemistry meeting in Baltimore, 

Md., about CNRM and its programs. 

Photo by Sharon Willis

Col. (Dr.) Paul Pasquina, Director of USU’s Center for Rehabilitation Science Research and Chief, Department of Orthopaedics 

and Rehabilitation at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center; Dr. Mike Nichols, chair, Public Policy and Education 

Committee, American Society for Neurochemistry; Dr. Regina Armstrong, director, USU Center for Neuroscience and 

Regenerative Medicine; Dr. Daniel Perl, Professor of Pathology (Neuropathology), USU and director, Military Brain Injury 

Studies Program, CNRM; and Dr. Larry Latour, staff scientist, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, NIH, 

principal investigator, Stroke and Neurotrauma Imaging Program, CNRM, participated in a public Brain Injury Forum held 

during this year’s American Society for Neurochemistry annual meeting in Baltimore, Md. 

Briefs 

Using Computer Resources 

Security incidents continue to be a 

drain to limited USU Information Assurance 

manpower. The following highlight 

current DoD policy and best practices: 

Personnel must not install selfcoded 

or non-licensed software on 

network resources; add, remove, 

configure, or attempt to modify 

USU computer operating systems 

or programs; move audio/visual or 

network cables, computers or attempt 

to connect personal computers to the 

network including MDL and lecture 

hall spaces; connect personal devices 

except for those previously authorized 

by NOC; download pornographic 

material and store or display offensive 

material, such as racist literature, 

sexually harassing or obscene language 

or material; store or process classified 

information on any USU system. 

Personnel must not permit 

unauthorized individuals access to a 

government-owned or governmentoperated 

system or program; access 

online gambling, games and social 

engineering sites, dates or times. 

Help Desk Closure 

The Customer Service Division 

(CSD) Help Desk is closed for staff 

meetings and training on Thursdays 

from 2:00 PM until 3:00 PM. Online 

services are still available during this 

time. Utilize the USU Service Desk 

(https://usuca/CAisd/pdmweb.exe) 

to enter your request and it will be 

serviced accordingly. 

Exercise/Fitness Areas 

Physical Fitness training should be 

conducted in designated areas. 

The only authorized space for PT 

within the university is room G060. 

The campus Student Community 

Lounge area is also authorized, but only 

during specified PFT dates or times. 

March 30, 2012 7

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