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Next GenerationA&QDarlene Zellers: Improving the lot of postdocsIt’s hard out there for a postdoc. You’re not quite a student any longer, and you’re not faculty. Youhave some idea where you want your career to go, but you might not know how to get there. To helpsketch out the career road map, Pitt’s schools of the health sciences recently established the Centerfor Postdoctoral Affairs in the Health Sciences, which is led by Darlene Zellers (shown above, center,flanked by staff members Tammy Dennis and Steve Wendell), associate dean of postdoctoral affairsin the School of Medicine. The office will help postdocs—there are about 650 of them in the healthsciences at Pitt, 90 percent of these in the School of Medicine—form concrete career goals by pairingthem with faculty supervisors and requiring that these mentors and postdocs work together.Why Pitt chose to formalize the postdoc experienceThere are guidelines for postdocs that the provost established in 2003. If you’re going to say, “Whatkind of progress are postdocs making on their research?” you have to understand what they weresupposed to accomplish. This is where the career development plan comes into play. It’s a preliminarydocument that then later serves as the baseline for the individual being evaluated. We areamong a handful of institutions to require a career development plan. Our process is unique in thatthere is so much structure to our template.On expected resultsA national survey of postdocs called “Doctors Without Orders” found that structured oversight ofpostdoc training correlated with increased trainee satisfaction, increased number of publications,higher rating of faculty-mentor relationships, and decreased conflicts between faculty and postdocs.So they found a very positive correlation between degree of structure and those positive outcomes.Her question for usI would be interested in other faculties’ reactions to putting a similar process in place. How adaptabledo they think our process is to other academic cultures? —Interview by Joe MikschCAMI MESAThe School of Medicine’s scholarlyproject requirement, an integral partof the curriculum since 2004, hasgiven students a taste of the research worldwhile they learn the physician’s arts.The Bert and Sally O’Malley Awards forOutstanding Medical Student Research recognizeespecially notable scholarly projectefforts with $500 prizes. (Bert and SallyO’Malley got their bachelor’s degrees at Pittin 1959; he went on to obtain his MD here in1963 and then enjoy a career as an innovativeendocrinologist. Bert O’Malley, a NationalMedal of Science winner, is chair of molecularand cellular biology at Baylor Collegeof Medicine.) The Class of 2012’s O’Malleywinners are Naomi Pitskel, Sameed Khatana,Adam Christopher, and the team of Hyun Kimand Mark Bernard. Pitskel’s work (performedunder the tutelage of Kevin Pelphrey of YaleUniversity) used functional imaging and neurogeneticsto study atypical gaze processingin people with autism. Khatana (working withWen-Chih Wu at Brown University) examinedthe association between certain antipsychoticsand metabolic syndrome in patients withmood and psychotic disorders. Christopherwas recognized for his project studying therole of cilia in complex congenital heart disease.(He was mentored by Cecilia Lo, a PhD,Dr. F. Sargent Cheevers Professor, and chairof developmental biology at Pitt.) And Kimand Bernard looked into ways to protect cellsfrom radiation damage. (The two worked withPitt’s Michael Epperly, a PhD and associateprofessor of radiation oncology, and JoelGreenberger, MD professor and chair of radiationoncology at Pitt.) —JM4 PITTMED
Partners with J&JMoney is tight. Federal funding of basicscience is lagging. The state has cut support forPitt’s School of Medicine and the University as awhole. So, the medical school is looking for additionalpartners. It’s embarked on a new venturewith the New Jersey–based Johnson & JohnsonCorporate Office of Science and Technology, hopingthat this symbiotic relationship will benefitresearch here and provide new commercial prospectsfor J&J.D. Lansing Taylor, director of the Universityof Pittsburgh Drug Discovery Institute andAllegheny Foundation Professor of Computationaland Systems Biology in the School of Medicine,is leading the effort on this end. J&J will fundfour research projects, expected to take 12 to18 months to complete, to the tune of $100,000each. “The idea is that while science is imperfect,out of the four, one or two may look reallypromising, and J&J will want to invest more,”Taylor says. The grants will be awarded in July.(The University’s Clinical and TranslationalScience Institute will also contribute funding.)“Hopefully this is just the first [partnership],”Taylor says. “We’re going to be aggressive ingoing after industry and getting our name outthere.” —JMCATHERINE LAZURETHE OWL, 1954FLASHBACKHis patients remember the late Richard Deitrick(BS ’54/MD ’59) as the man who helped care forthem and their babies (he served as head of ob/gynat UPMC Mercy). Pitt football fans remember him asthe man who, in 1952, helped the Panthers beat theOhio State Buckeyes on their home field for the firsttime since 1936. Quoth thePittsburgh Press: “Deitrick,a 215-pound end, caught theball on Ohio State’s 35-yardlineand stormed the rest ofthe way to the goal like anirritated bucking bronco, withseveral shifts of piggy-backriders having no success whateverat reining him in.” AfterDeitrick’s death in August2011, we learned that the gooddoctor (who also played onPitt’s basketball and baseballteams) was drafted by the LARams, but instead chose to goto med school.LONG LIVE MICE!It seemed like a simple proposition. The stem cells in mice bred to agerapidly (mimicking the rare disease progeria) show signs of degenerationlike those of naturally old mice. So Pitt’s Johnny Huard, a PhD and professorin the Departments of Orthopaedic Surgery and of Microbiology andMolecular Genetics in the School of Medicine and director of its Stem CellResearch Center, and Laura Niedernhofer, an MD/PhD associate professorin Pitt’s Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and a memberof the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, wondered how an injectionof stem cells derived from the muscles of a young mouse might affect therapid aging process.The results were beyond their wildest dreams. Not only did the miceinjected with stem and progenitor cells display healthier, more activebehavior, but they also lived two or three times longer than expected(sometimes as long as 66 days, instead of the 20- or 21-day lifespan seenin other mice bred to inherit progeria). Three sets of control groups demonstratedno change in life span.Further experimentation showed that the new cells had spread outbeyond the abdominal injection site to reside throughout the body, “buteven that doesn’t explain the benefit we’re getting,” says Huard. By placingaging and healthy stem cells side by side, Huard and Niedernhofer discoveredthat an as-of-yet unknown secretion of the healthy cells actuallyrescues the aging cells.“We really believe that, down the road, we can help to improve agingand delay aging-related disorders in people,” says Huard. “This is whatscientists dream about.” —Justin HopperDeitrick captained the Panthers4 PITTMED as a Pitt senior.SUMMER 2012 5
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