Center Report

About a year ago the Dean asked me to accept the job of Chair ad interim and Director ad interim of the SCMS. At the time there was some question as to whether the Center would be folded within the HBCG Departmental structure, a fate two other departments were to experience in the interest of efficiency and savings. I felt that SCMS had one singular quality it could provide to the University at large that no other UTMB entity could offer. I felt that given the agreed upon level of excellence of its members, the SCMS could provide a point of focus for excellence and intellectual programs not necessarily aimed at building buildings, new technological tools or programs with large funding but rather promoting interdisciplinary multiinvestigator efforts to bridge the usual “silos” present in academia and thus provide opportunities for the development of truly translational approaches based on quality science that would attract both basic and clinical faculty with an academic perspective. I am glad to report that SCMS is now an entity on sound footing in the University.

You, the members of the Center, supported me as I awkwardly developed this vision and embraced the more communal aspects as we included all of HBCG in our planning and vision and eventually the UTMB community. We have taken small humble steps in the development of this program. The Administration has endorsed our efforts and as of today, thanks to your help and patience with me, our Center is on firm footing. We have a Scholars in Residence Program, a new level of involvement by other Centers in our annual Forum, a new seminar program highlighting University wide research excellence and a new Molecular Medicine Workshop series that aims to promote translational research. Involvement of Center members in both HBCG and UTMB ventures has increased.

The accomplishments of the Center are best reflected in the publication of 55 papers in scientific journals and books this last year and the receipt of $32million in external research support over the 2002-2004 period (2002=$9.7mil; 2003=$10.2mil; 2004=$12.1mil). Four Senior Scientists in SCMS have received the Distinguished Faculty Research Award in the last few years. S. Prakash has been the recipient of two R37 Merit Awards from NCI, a most singular accomplishment,

Over the next couple of months the candidates for Director of our Center and Chair of HBCG will be making a second and definitive visit to our campus. Louise Prakash will be presenting your views to the search committee. We must all participate in this process to make sure that the final recommendations to the Dean are all equally able to fulfill our goals. Wayne Bolen and Louise Prakash will be most active in this process. Please help them in their efforts. Personally, I have cancelled scheduled talks to make sure that I am available during October and November to provide all the information I can to insure a smooth transition regardless of the choice for a new Director and Chair.

Thank you for your help during this next period of development of our Center Vision.

regino

Dr. J. Regino Perez-Polo

Dr. Sankar Mitra

Dr. Louise Prakash

Uljon, S. N., R. E. Johnson, T. A. Edwards, S. Prakash, L. Prakash, and A. K. Aggarwal (2004) Crystal structure of the catalytic core of human DNA polymerase kappa. Structure 12: 1395-1404.

Das, A., Rajagopalan, L., Mathura, V. S., Rigby, S. J., Mitra, S. and Hazra, T. K. Identification of a zinc finger domain in the human NEIL (Nei like)-2 protein. J. Biol. Chem., In Press, 2004.

Mokkapati, S. K., Wiederhold, L., Hazra, T. K., and Mitra, S. Stimulation of DNA Glycosylase Activity of OGG1 by NEIL1: Functional Collaboration Between Two Human DNA Glycosylases. Biochemistry. In Press, 2004.

Wiederhold, L., Leppard, J. B., Kedar, P., Karimi-Busheri, F., Rasouli-Nia, A., Weinfeld, M., Tomkinson, A. E., Izumi, T., Prasad, R., Wilson, S. H., Mitra, S., and Hazra, T. K. AP Endonuclease-independent DNA Base Excision Repair in Human Cells. Molecular Cell 15, 209-220, 2004.

National Institute on Aging, 1PO1 AG021830-01, Program Project “Oxidative Stress,Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Aging” (Papaconstantinou, P.I.). Project 2: Age-Dependent Modulation of AP-Endonuclease Functions (Mitra, P.L.).

SCMS Seminar Series

Allan R. Brasier

October 12, 2004
5:00 p.m.
Levin Hall North auditorium
"NF-kB signaling network"

Reception following in Levin Hall Foyer.