Dr. Joseph Broderick

The University of Cincinnati has received a $12.7 million federal grant to continue a study that compares treatment approaches for acute ischemic stroke.

The study, which began in 2005, compares two methods of treatment for ischemic stroke, which occurs when an artery to the brain is blocked. Both treatment approaches involve the clot-busting drug tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), which to have effect must be administered intravenously within three hours of stroke onset.

The first stroke-treatment approach involved in the study involves the administration of tPA alone. The second involves using the drug plus either a mechanical clot-busting device or tPA delivered directly to the site of the arterial blockage with a catheter, according to a statement from the University of Cincinnati (UC).

“While some of these intra-arterial devices are being used as part of standard practice in many hospitals worldwide, we still don’t know whether or not the combination of IV tPA and the devices improves patient outcomes better than IV tPA alone,” said Dr. Joseph Broderick, principal investigator for the trial and chair of neurology at the UC College of Medicine.

UC originally received a $17.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health for the trial. The new grant will fund the trial into 2015, according to the statement.

Researchers’ goal for the study is to enroll 900 patients across the globe. So far they’ve enrolled 571.

University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers used various work-intensity measurement tools to gauge the level of mental effort and stress experienced by four different types of doctors: family physicians, general internists, surgeons and neurologists, according to a statement from UC. The study was published in the journal Medical Care.

“A physician’s work can be assessed by the time required to complete it and by the intensity of the effort, which is central to properly valuing the services being provided,” said Ronnie Horner, chair of UC’s public health sciences department and lead investigator on the study

That statement, and particularly the part about “valuing the services,” could be music to the ears of those who advocate for higher primary care salaries. The compensation gap between specialists and primary care doctors is wide, despite a widely reported national “shortage” of primary care physicians as well as the generally recognized importance of primary care to improving the nation’s health.

For example, radiologists last year earned median compensation of about $471,000, while doctors in internal medicine earned median compensation of about $205,000, according to the Medical Group Management Association. That trend of much higher pay than primary care holds across most specialties, such as orthopedic surgery and cardiology.

“It is clear that the pay you can expect as a physician has little to do with how hard you work, how long you train, or how stressful or difficult your work is, and everything to do with whether you perform procedures that are highly compensated,” wrote Dr. Edward Pullen, a family physician, on the popular KevinMD blog last year.

A recent Columbia University study showed that the U.S. undervalues primary care relative to other industrialized countries. In the U.S., primary care doctors earned about 42 percent of what orthopedic surgeons did. In Canada, France and Germany, primary care physicians earned at least 60 percent of orthopedic surgeons’ compensation. (The study also found that U.S. physicians’ compensation across all specialties, including primary care, was significantly higher than in other industrialized nations.)

The good news for primary care advocates is that there already seems to be at least some realization by policy makers about potential problems in pay disparity. Last year’s federal health reform law contained a provision raising Medicare reimbursements to primary care physicians by 10 percent, a small amount, but a start nonetheless.

The UC study was funded by a laundry list of medical associations: the American Academy of Neurology, the American Academy of Dermatology, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, and the Joint Council of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

The goal is to develop a breast cancer treatment by indirectly targeting estrogen, as opposed to other drugs on the market that directly target and stop the hormone, according to a statement from the University of Cincinnati (UC).

The grant to Xiaoting Zhang, of UC’s cancer and cell biology department, comes from the U.S. Department of Defense.

Early studies in animal models and cells show the researcher’s approach to estrogen suppression in breast tissue causes minimal disruption to the hormone’s function in other parts of the body. The approach has yet to be tested in humans.

Current anti-estrogen drugs that directly target estrogen can inhibit the hormone in the breast, but also cause collateral damage by disrupting the function of estrogen in the uterus, bone and other tissues, according to the statement.

“It is a truly innovative project with high potential clinical impact,” said UC Provost Santa Ono.

Boat has worked at the University of Cincinnati’s (UC) medical school since 1993, when he joined as chairman of pediatrics. Prior to his appointment as dean, he held the title of executive associate dean, a position he’d been in since 2008, according to a statement from UC.

“After a thorough national search for the right candidate to fill this important position, it is clear that the best person for the job is right here at home,” UC President Gregory H. Williams said in the statement.

Boat becomes the 49th dean in the medical college’s nearly 200-year history. The college was founded in 1819 and is the second-oldest public medical school in the country.

Before he joined UC, Boat was chairman of the department of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina. Prior to that, he was co-director of the Cystic Fibrosis Center at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland.

A gift of $2 million for the program comes from the Harold C. Schott Foundation, while the remaining $4.5 million comes from the University’s College of Medicine, according to a statement from the University of Cincinnati (UC).

Brain metastases are secondary tumor sites that occur when cancer spreads from the point of origin to another organ or part of the body. More than 170,000 people are diagnosed annually with a secondary cancer that has spread to the brain, according to the National Cancer Institute.

UC said it believes the new program is “the first comprehensive brain metastasis-specific translational research program” in the country, according to the statement. A major focus of the program will involve building a research team that will collaborate with brain tumor surgeons and clinicians to study brain metastases through traditional research and clinical trials.

The university is currently recruiting for three new faculty members to conduct laboratory and preclinical research studies aimed at understanding the biology of brain metastases, according to the statement.

“For a long time, brain metastases have been treated as an orphan disease — given little research funding and stalling any progress toward improved treatment strategies,” said Dr. Ronald Warnick, director of the UC Brain Tumor Center. “We hope to change that through this new program.”

The three-year grant will be used to investigate how and why gastric bypass surgery works, according to a statement from Ethicon Endo-Surgery. Gastric bypass surgery often helps patients lose weight and can also cure type 2 diabetes. The procedure involves stapling a patient’s stomach to create a small pouch, as well as a passage for food to bypass part of the small intestine. The surgery reshapes the stomach into a tube, which restricts the amount of calories the body absorbs.

Randy Seeley will lead the research team in attempting to replicate the process what happens to the body as a result of gastric bypass surgery to find a lower-cost, less-invasive procedure that produces the same results. Gastric bypass surgery typically costs between $15,000 and $17,000.

In addition to Ethicon and the University of Cincinnati, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital will participate in the project. Including the $13.5 million grant, more than $33 million has gone to the project in recent years.

Ethicon Endo-Surgery is a division of Johnson & Johnson that develops surgical devices such as shears and staplers.

The researchers aim to develop a library of carbohydrates that can be used to detect the presence of influenza in human samples, according to a statement from the University.

The researchers will work with a specific type of carbohydrate, called a glycoconjugate, which can be used to detect toxins. Upon detecting a toxin, the carbohydrate can react and cause something to change, such as the color of a solution, which can be read by a measuring device, for example.

Suri Iyer, an assistant professor of chemistry, and Alison Weiss, a professor of molecular genetics, will lead the research.

“Early and accurate detection of influenza strains is critical for effective countermeasures, especially since new strains — for example, the 2009 H1N1 strain — can spread rapidly,” Iyer said.

The five-year grant comes from the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, one of the National Institutes of Health.

During their first meeting since voters approved an extension and expansion of the Ohio Third Frontier through fiscal 2015, commissioners also approved $11 million in entrepreneurial support and pre-seed investment fund grants, as well as a fiscal 2011 budget between $125 million and $143 million.

Third Frontier is the 10-year, $1.35 billion program to re-energize Ohio’s economy by investing in projects in five industry clusters, including biomedical. Early this month, voters added $700 million in bond proceeds and four years to the program.

The five commissioners who attended Wednesday’s meeting voted unanimously to fund seven Wright Project grant proposals, including:

Cleveland Clinic: $3 million for its Clinically Applied Rehabilitation Engineering project, which aims at developing, testing, manufacturing and commercializing advanced, rehabilitative medical products for patients suffering from cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, metabolic and musculoskeletal diseases. Collaborators: Parker Hannifin Corp., Bertec Corp., Case Western Reserve  University and the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center.

Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland: $2.1 million for its Development of a Quantitative Analysis System for Stem Cells project, which focuses on research commercialization of non-embryonic stem cells from umbilical cord blood as part of a Food and Drug Administration-licensed therapy to help some transplant patients and for testing. Collaborators: Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, Cleveland Clinic, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cleveland Cord Blood Center, BioInVision, Athersys (NASDAQ: ATHX), PerkinElmer, Thermogenesis (NASDAQ: KOOL), GE Healthcare (NYSE: GE), Hospira and Lakeland Community College.

University of Cincinnati: $3 million for its project, The Ohio Center for Microfluidic Innovation — New Products and Competitive Manufacturing of Emerging Biomedical Applications. The project wants to study, make and commercialize microfluidics technology, which could generate more valuable test results from a much smaller fluid sample than current technology. National Academies reviewers suggested the project be scaled back to just its biomedical applications. Collaborators: Siloam Biosciences, Gamma Dynamics, Sun Chemical and EnMonT.

Third Frontier advisers and commissioners spent a lot of time Wednesday debating “continuity” issues among entrepreneurial support and pre-seed investment funds that already have received grants. Facing state budget challenges, the program limited awards to only organizations that have received past money:

Cleveland Clinic was awarded $2 million for its Ohio BioValidation Fund III, which will invest in promising early stage biomedical companies.

JumpStart Inc., the venture development organization in Cleveland that has invested in several biomedical  and healthcare companies, will receive $4 million for operations and investments. JumpStart gets an additional $1.8 million for its bioscience and entrepreneurial network, which will provide entrepreneurial services to bioscience startups in the Northeast Ohio region. Collaborators: BioEnterprise, Great Lakes Innovation and Development Enterprise and the Akron Global Business Accelerator.

North Coast Angel Fund II in Mayfield Heights is getting $2 million to invest in high-potential, early stage technology companies.

Ohio TechAngel Fund III in Columbus was awarded $825,000 to invest in early stage, Ohio-based technology companies, with a strong emphasis on healthcare innovations and information technology.

TechColumbus is getting $500,000 to continue investing in early-to-late-stage technologystart-ups in Central Ohio. Focus areas of the fund are bioscience, information technology and advanced materials.

Third Frontier commissioners put off votes on three more entrepreneurial support and pre-seed fund grant proposals, asking for more information with plans to vote on those proposals in June.

As for next year’s fiscal budget, the commissioners plan to award $20 million to entrepreneurial support and pre-seed funds, as well as $7 million to both biomedical and medical imaging grant-seekers. The commissioners also budgeted $8 million for a new Wright Center Success Fund, which will invest operating dollars in existing centers of innovation.

The latest flow of a continuing stream of stimulus grants comes from the National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health, according to Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown.

The money is aimed at helping to construct, repair and renovate scientific research laboratories. The projects will support immediate construction jobs and will promote long-term economic growth, Brown said.

– The Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University will get $2 million for laboratory renovations to create additional space for research to improve diagnosis and cure rates in cancer.

– Ohio State University will get $8 million to construct a multidisciplinary biomedical research and education center as a centerpiece for its health sciences campus. The Columbus, Ohio, university also will get $3.9 million to create four modern research laboratories and support space, as well as a dedicated rodent phenotyping and infectious necropsy laboratory.

– The University of Cincinnati is getting $4.8 million to renovate research space to bring together scientists from different disciplines, recruit high-caliber investigators and create an area to connect scientists with the community. The Cincinnati university also will use $8.4 million to renovate a research facility to help investigators meet present and future needs for bench and translational research.

Having a master contract to which a project’s unique terms could be added is expected to speed industry collaboration by up to 18 months, compared with similarly positioned universities in other states. It’s also expected to increase industry-sponsored research — a goal of Ohio’s 10-year Strategic Plan for Higher Education — as well as create jobs.

“For the first time, with just one agreement, we are unleashing the collective power of Ohio’s universities to help turn ideas into products and products into jobs,” Gov. Ted Strickland said in a written statement. “This agreement generates positive impacts for everyone involved — P&G is able to take advantage of Ohio’s most creative research minds, and our universities get to collaborate with P&G on new products.”

Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, Ohio Board of Regents Chancellor Eric D. Fingerhut and Ohio Department of Development Director Lisa Patt-McDaniel joined Strickland and Procter & Gamble Vice President of Global Business Development Jeff Weedman to announce the agreement.

“We’re excited to be the first business to collaborate on such an agreement with the University System of Ohio,” Weedman said in the governor’s statement. “With P&G’s Connect + Develop program, we focus on partnering externally on innovation collaboration around the world. This agreement has the added benefit of externally partnering close to home.”

The master agreement, which is modeled after one pioneered by the University of Cincinnati (UC) and Procter & Gamble in 2005, creates a more efficient business model for companies and universities, accelerating innovation and collaboration, and speeding products to market, Weedman said.

The UC Simulation Center grew out of that university’s agreement with Procter & Gamble, said UC spokesperson Dama Kimmon. While not a direct outgrowth of the agreement, the university’s relationship with the consumer goods company helped develop UC’s Live Well Collaborative, according to Sandra Degen, vice president for research.

The agreement also could help increase the competitiveness of Ohio universities as a source of innovation. “Procter & Gamble is a global company. It is the largest consumer products company in the world. It achieves 50 percent of its growth through innovation that has been developed externally. And it pays for the research that leads to those innovations,” Fingerhut said in a telephone interview.

“We believe we should position ourselves to be as large a partner in P&G’s innovation efforts as we can possibly be,” he said. Beyond P&G, “This is part of our efforts to be good partners with businesses in Ohio to help create jobs and prosperity for Ohioans,” he said.

The 14 universities in the University System of Ohio are expected to sign the new agreement within the next few weeks. “This agreement represents a great step forward in university collaboration with business, said UC President Gregory H. Williams in the governor’s statement.

The agreement also aligns with the Ohio Third Frontier program, which is aimed at fostering collaboration between universities and businesses on research projects to strengthen the state’s economy and establish Ohio as a leader in innovation, while creating jobs.

“This partnership is critical to the continued growth and success of Ohio’s businesses and research institutions,” said the Ohio Department of Development’s Patt-McDaniel, in the statement.

News and notes from the day in MedCity, Ohio:

US Endoscopy, the endoscopy device design and manufacturing company in Mentor, has released the Entrada colonic overtube, which offers more control during colonoscopy in patients with tortuous sigmoid looping, according to the company’s release (pdf).

The Ohio House of Representatives on Wednesday voted 96-0 for House Bill 198 authorizing a medical homes pilot program meant to revolutionize how primary health care is delivered in the state, the Dayton Daily News reported.

Ohio State UniversityPresident E. Gordon Gee and Battelle President and CEO Jeffrey Wadsworth testify this morning in support of science, technology, engineering and mathematics education reform before the House Committee on Science and Technology, according to an OSU release.

The University of Cincinnati has again been recognized and awarded as a state leader in science, technology, engineering and math education as one of four institutions selected for the state’s new Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship Program, according to a university release.

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have found that it is cost-effective to do CT scan screening of non-smoking women, ages 25-54, who come to the emergency room for the first time with a collapsed lung in order to diagnose and treat those with lymphangioleiomyomatosis, according to a university release.

Twice a week, volunteers from Haven of Rest Ministries pick up unused food from Summa Health System locations in Akron, the Beacon Journal reported.

Carotid stents shine as stroke-busters, according to the Columbus Dispatch.

Lake Health System was one of 22 Ohio businesses awarded with the Bronze Healthy Ohioans-Healthy Worksite Award by Healthy Ohio, according to a hospital release. The award recognizes Ohio employers that demonstrate a commitment to employee health through comprehensive worksite health promotion and wellness programs.

SLACK Inc. recently published the fourth edition of Psychopathology and Function, a textbook by Bette Bonder, dean and professor at the Cleveland State University College of Science, according to the publisher.

AtriCure Inc., the West Chester medical device company that makes cardiac surgical ablation systems, will participate in the Roth Capital Partners 22nd Annual OC Growth Stock Conferenceat the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel in Dana Point, Calif., on Monday, March 15, according to a company release.

Don Brown, chief executive of Cleveland stem cell research and development company Arteriocyte, talked to the Ohio Business Development Coalition about what the Ohio Third Frontier project means to him and about his experience working in the biotechnology industry in Ohio.

Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy has been named to the 2009 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning and civic engagement, according to a university release.

“Facing Our Mental Health Crisis: A Community Conversation” will take center stage at the Mount Union Theatre March 17 at Mount Union College, 1972 Clark Ave., Alliance, according to the Canton Repository.

Here’s a belated link to an IndustryWeek story on how Astro Manufacturing & Designin Eastlake has retooled for the biomedical industry.

Another belated link to a Site Selection magazine story (pdf) on Cleveland’s biomedical hub.

Lowe’s Companies Inc. looked at what it was paying for heart treatments across the country and didn’t like what it saw, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. So the home-improvement retailer went shopping, choosing the Cleveland Clinic for valve repairs, coronary bypasses and the like. Could this practice become a model for health care reform?

Ohio ranked eighth nationally in number of premature deaths that could occur because of lack of health coverage, according to consumer health group Families USA. The failure to enact health care reform — and greater coverage — this year could lead in the next decade to about 8,900 premature deaths of people between the ages of 25 and 64 years old in Ohio, according to a group release.

Kettering-based Home Care by Black Stone has acquired the Columbus branch of Personal-Touch Home Care Inc., a Bayside, N.Y.-based company with more than 50 locations nationwide, according to the Dayton Business Journal. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Home Care said the acquisition would boost its client base by about 5 percent and add about 20 employees to its staff of more than 300.

Akron Children’s Hospital is expanding its reach into Cuyahoga County, opening a general pediatrics practice next week in Brecksville, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. The office will be the 16th Akron Children’s Hospital Pediatrics location throughout Northeast Ohio and the second in Cuyahoga County.

Chiou-Fen Chuang, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati and researcher in developmental biology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, has been awarded a 2010 Sloan Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to fund continuing neurodevelopment research, according to a university release. Chuang was one of 16 neuroscientists nationwide to receive this two-year, $50,000 award.

The first edition of James Toole’s Cerebrovascular Disorders, published in 1967, was the first modern stroke textbook. Now, more than 40 years later and through five editions, a new edition co-authored by Dr. E. Steve Roach, Nationwide Children’s Hospital neurology chief, has been released for both specialists and residents, according to a hospital statement.

Akron now has a biomedical district, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. With a few minor changes, city council approved legislation Monday that outlined the district — changing it from concept to reality — and made several zoning changes within the area that encompasses the city’s three downtown hospitals and the University of Akron.

Diagnostic Hybrids, the Athens company purchased last week by Quidel Corp. of San Diego, has received emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for using its D3 Ultra 2009 H1N1 Influenza A Virus ID Kit for individuals with signs and symptoms of influenza, and who previously tested positive for the influenza A virus, according to a BusinessWire release.

Miami Valley Hospital and Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine are partnering to create a neuroscience institute to help patients with a variety of neurological disorders and attract funding for advanced biomedical research, with details to come Wednesday at a news conference that will include Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, the Dayton Business Journal reported.

Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy in Rootstown is advertising for a medical college dean, according to Physicians Jobs Plus.

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati Interstitial Lung Disease Center have received a $714,000 grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to study ways interstitial lung disease — the often fatal disease that affects the tissues of the lungs — first appears in certain patient groups with autoimmune diseases, and how to more efficiently diagnose and treat it, according to a university release.

Plain Dealer editors and reporters recently toured University Hospitals Case Medical Center’s 375,000-square-foot, 120-bed cancer hospital that’s going up at the corner of Euclid Avenue and Cornell Drive, according to the Cleveland newspaper. Although the structure was topped out some months ago, much work remains to be done on the interior. The $250 million building is scheduled to open in spring 2011.

Cleveland real estate developer Forest City Enterprises Inc. has agreed to sell a 49% interest in seven life science buildings at the University Park mixed-use project in Cambridge, Mass., to Toledo-based Health Care REIT Inc., according to Crain’s Cleveland  Business.

Cleveland medical negligence law firm Spangenberg, Shibley & Liber has won a substantial settlement for the widow and children of a NASA Glenn engineer who died from a heart attack likely caused by going off his anti-blood clotting medications before having a colonoscopy, according to a PRWeb release.

Click4Care, the Powell company that provides health care management software for payors, said its care management system now can fully accommodate ICD-10 data code sets and extract information from ICD-10-coded claims data, eliminating onerous and time-consuming conversion, according to a BusinessWire release.

Terry Wiegel, director of rehabilitative services at Children’s Medical Center of Dayton, has been awarded the 2010 Ohio Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Elwood Chaney Outstanding Clinician Award, which recognizes significant accomplishments in the advancement of clinical practice and service in speech-language pathology and/or audiology, according to a medical center release.

The feel-good news came a day after Forbes magazine named Cleveland No. 1 on its annual America’s Most Miserable Cities list. Four other Ohio cities–Canton, 9th; Akron, 12th; Toledo, 15th; and Youngstown, 18th–made the Top 20 list.

The centers focus their academic and research activities on biomedical and health care enterprise, creating jobs and strengthening Ohio’s leadership in these industries, according to a release from the governor’s office. Ohio is home to 775 bioscience companies, including the headquarters to two Fortune 500 companies–Cardinal Health and Procter & Gamble.

Centers of excellence are the building blocks of universities as economic drivers, according the Board of Regents. The state already has named centers of excellence in alternative energy at eight universities.

These centers figure heavily in how the Ohio Third Frontier–the state’s $1.6 billion, 10-year economic development project–awards hundreds of millions of dollars in research, development and commercialization grants each year. Voters will be asked to renew Third Frontier in May.

“Aligning Ohio universities with Ohio’s growing biomedical and health care industries will generate economic growth and new, hard-to-outsource jobs,” Strickland said in the release.  “Biomedicine and health care in Ohio create high-wage jobs, investments in facilities, research and development, and production. But much more than that, these industries bring forth medical breakthroughs that benefit citizens of Ohio and citizens of the world.”

The centers of excellence also help position the University System of Ohio as a magnet for talent and a leader in innovation and entrepreneurial activity by developing distinct missions for each institution, Fingerhut said. The Ohio Research Scholars program, a joint effort of Third Frontier, the Board of Regents and the University System of Ohio, uses the same centers of excellence approach.

“The biomedical and health care sectors are two of the fastest-growing industries in the country,” Fingerhut said. “Each center of excellence brings unique approaches that, together, will drive economic growth and establish Ohio as the national leader in biomedicine and health care.”

The centers and their host universities:

• Austen BioInnovation Institute in Akron–University of Akron/Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy (NEOUCOM)
• Health and Wellness Across the Lifespan–Bowling Green State University
• Translating Technology and Research into Better Health–Case Western Reserve University (including Case Center for Imaging Research, National Center for Regenerative Medicine, Center for Global Health and Diseases, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center)
• Transforming Healthcare in the 21st Century–University of Cincinnati (including UC Neuroscience Institute, Environmental Health Department, UC Cancer Center, UC Pediatrics Department and Metabolic Diseases Institute)
• Center for 21st Century Health Professionals and Researchers–Cleveland State University
• Tissue Regeneration and Engineering–University of Dayton
• Health of Individuals and Communities–Kent State University
• Structural Biology and Metabonomics–Miami University
• Institute for Neurobehavioral Health–NEOUCOM
• Health and Well Being, Human Behavior and Bioinformatics–Ohio State University
• Health and Wellness–Ohio University
• Translational Health and Bioscience–University of Toledo
• BioHealth Innovation–Wright State University (including National Center for Medical Readiness and Knowledge-Enabled and Human-Centered Computing)
• Understanding Disease and Other Disorders–Youngstown State University (including Rich Center for Autism)

Six researchers from the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center have been awarded over $4 million in federal research grants to investigate chronic diseases that commonly affect veterans, according to a university release.

A study by researchers at the University of Cincinnati Neuroscience Institute at University Hospital supports the use of an alternative medication to prevent seizures in patients who have suffered a life-threatening traumatic brain injury or bleeding stroke, according to another university release.

The Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy has “outgrown” its wordy name and needs a new one, Jay Alan Gershen, new president of the Rootstown medical school, said Tuesday in his State of the University address to faculty and staff, the Kent-Ravenna Record-Courier reported.

Retailer Lowe’s will offer its employees heart surgery at the Cleveland Clinic, under an alliance between the hospital in Ohio and the No. 2 home improvement chain, according to an Associated Press story posted at Yahoo! Finance.

Dublin’s Cardinal Health is considering an expansion of its factory in Marsa, Malta, that country’s prime minister, Lawrence Gonzi, told some of the factory’s 110 workers on Wednesday, according to the Times of Malta. The plant, which makes Medi-Vac suction canisters, among other products, is expected to take over some production now being done by Europe factories that are closing.

Delaware County, about 20 miles north of Columbus, has the state’s healthiest residents, according to the the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. Northeast Ohio boasts two of the state’s 10 healthiest counties: Geauga is ranked second; Medina is fourth. The state’s least-healthy county? Lawrence.

Ohio and its neighboring states need a massive venture capital fund that pumps money into businesses, says a white paper, Turning up the Heat: How Venture Capital Can Help Fuel the Economic Transformation of the Great Lakes Region, released today by the Brookings Institution public policy think tank, the Business Courier of Cincinnati reported.

UT-Battelle, a unit of Columbus-based Battelle, the product research, development and commercialization organization, has licensed tissue regeneration inventions to NellOne Therapeutics Inc. that could lead to therapies that restore both mass and function to damaged human tissues, according to a EurekaAlert! release.

RSB Spine LLC in Cleveland said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the company’s application to sell its InterPlateC-PS and L-PS Interbody Spacers, according to a PRNewswire release.

Health Care REIT Inc. in Toledo has declared a 68-cent-a-share cash dividend for the quarter ended Dec. 31. The dividend will be payable Feb. 19 to stockholders as of Feb. 8, according to a BusinessWire release.

Deaconess Associations Foundation has given a $500,000 gift in the name of the Heimlich Institute to fund cellular research at Hoxworth Blood Center at the University of Cincinnati, the university said in a release.

Summa Health System in Akron recently received $140,000 in grants to help fill a health-care gap in the community, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.

Magruder Hospital in Port Clinton and Fisher-Titus Medical Center in Norwalk will partner to spend $30 million to be the first hospitals in the country to go all digital, according to the Sandusky Register.

While being treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, Patrick Yovanov, a University of Cincinnati industrial design student, experimented with clips to tie up the exposed lines of the intravenous catheter that fed him with chemotherapy, blood transfusions and other treatments, according to hiVelocity. Yovanov came up with a folding plastic clip that discreetly stows and supports the lines and is working with medical device companies to manufacture it.

The Meadows Health Care Center in suburban Cincinnati has received the Award of Excellence from the Ohio Academy of Nursing Homes for meeting or exceeding stringent nursing home requirements, according to a PRWeb release.

The Austen BioInnovation Institute in Akron plans to award its first six research grants for $100,000 each by mid-February, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.

Neoprobe Corp. in Dublin has completed a license amendment with Dow Chemical Co. to use antibodies developed at Dow and National Institutes of Health laboratories in Neoprobe’s RIGS surgical oncology system to target cancers including colon, rectal, breast, bladder, ovarian and endometrial, according to a BusinessWire release.

A $3.75 million award from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases is aimed at helping a partnership between the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center find new ways to use adult stem cells to speed repair of musculoskeletal soft tissue injuries, according to a university release.

Dr. Daryl Thornton, medical director of the Medical Intensive Care Unit at MetroHealth Medical Center, is concerned about the low rates at which people — specifically minorities — donate organs and is calling for primary-care physicians to jump-start that delicate conversation with their patients, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported.

Trench warfare over health-care reform in Washington — and bulk shipments — keep Cardinal Health CEO George Barrett up at nights, according to SmartMoney.

Talk about bulk shipments, Cardinal Health said Monday it plans to close its Findlay, Ohio, distribution center in April to reduce its nationwide distribution capacity, putting about 115 employees out of work, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

A HealthGrades study ranked clinical quality at St. Vincent Charity Medical Center in Cleveland among the top 5 percent in the nation, putting the Sisters of Charity Health System member on the HealthGrades Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence list, along with 26 other Ohio hospitals, according to HealthGrades.

A multi-center trial involving University of Cincinnati research confirms that a new tool — an 80-lead electrocardiogram — can show severe heart attacks in more patients, potentially leading to better diagnoses and faster treatment, according to a university press release.

Cleveland Clinic doctors soon will be providing around-the-clock care at Medina Hospital, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.

Liberal think tank ProgressOhio is inviting state voters to a noon-time “tele-townhall meeting” on Tuesday, Jan. 12, during which Sen. Sherrod Brown will speak about the continuing debate on health care reform in Congress, according to a citizen’s entry at the Cincinnati Enquirer’s politics blog.

The American Legacy Foundation, a Washington, D.C., anti-smoking organization, said Wednesday it would seek an appeal of last week’s court ruling that found Ohio could spend for other purposes money it had set aside almost a decade ago for smoking treatment and cessation programs, the Toledo Blade reported. Until two years ago, the so-called tobacco settlement money had been used, in part, to fund Ohio Third Frontier’s biomedical research and technology trusts.

ProMedica Health System in Toledo has launched the Healthy Kids Conversation Map Program — a preventative health education program for children in grades four through six and their parents designed to raise awareness about childhood obesity and empower participants to make lifelong, healthy choices about food and exercise, according to a MarketWire release.

Columbus oncology contract research organization Prologue Research International Inc. has hired Art Ziegler as vice president of business development. Ziegler is a 25-year veteran of clinical research and business development, according to a MarketWire release.

Prilosec OTC, the over-the-counter acid reducer by Cincinnati’s Procter & Gamble, today launched the “Official Sponsor of Everything You Do Without Heartburn” program. Consumers will use photos and videos to compete for an average $1,000 “sponsorship” to support their passions in 15 categories, from health and fitness, to arts and crafts, and “take those passions to the next level,” Prilosec OTC brand manager Robert Cleveland said in a press release.

The Ohio Department of Insurance has suspended Texas-based insurer Chesapeake Life Insurance Co. from writing policies in Ohio for violating a new state law that reduces premiums in the individual health insurance market for those with pre-existing conditions, according to Business First of Columbus.

Neoprobe Corp., the Dublin company developing a novel cancer-detection drug, has struck a three-year employment agreement with its long-time CEO, agreeing to pay David C. Bupp an annual base salary of $355,000, an annual bonus of up to $125,000 in 2010 and a golden parachute of at least $887,500, according to HotStocked.com.

Charlottesville, Va., drug development company Diffusion Pharmaceuticals LLC has added Guy M. Chisolm, vice chairman of the Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute  where he is a professor of cell biology to its scientific advisory board, according to a PRNewswire release.

Nearly 15,000 people have signed up for the Cleveland Clinic’s “go! FIT” initiative, overwhelming the YMCA of Greater Cleveland and Curves locations in Cuyahoga County, WKYC-TV reported.

Neurotrauma experts at the University of Cincinnati Neuroscience Institute at University Hospital are seeking public input before launching federally funded research aimed at improving outcomes for patients who suffer traumatic brain injury, according to a university press release.

American Associated Pharmacies, parent of Associated Pharmacies Inc.  and United Drugs, has selected Cardinal Health in Dublin to be the exclusive pharmaceutical distributor for its nearly 2,000 independent pharmacy members nationwide, according to a PRNewswire release.

Danielle Everman had never heard of pelvic prolapse until she started the Medical Device Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program at the University of Cincinnati, according to the Business Courier of Cincinnati.

The double-digit pay increases that most local nonprofit hospital chief executives received in 2008 evaporated in 2009 as the recession deepened, at least in the Dayton area, according to the Dayton Daily News.

A new and improved Hillcrest Hospital should be up and running by this time next year, thanks to a $163 million expansion project at the Cleveland Clinic hospital in Mayfield Heights, according to the Willoughby News-Herald. 

An Ohio law that caps the amounts insurance companies can charge people with pre-existing health conditions who buy individual policies took effect on Jan. 1, the Columbus Dispatch reported.

Deal or no deal? CareFusion Corp., a publicly held spinoff of Cardinal Health Inc. in Dublin, recommended on Dec. 17 that shareholders turn down a deal to offer their shares to TRC Capital Corp. for $23.50 apiece, or 5 percent below the prior day’s closing price, according to the San Diego Business Journal.

The biotech industry saw its stock values dip dramatically during a turbulent opening quarter in 2009, then slowly, steadily recovered by year-end, helped by dramatic year-over-year share increases of companies such as Cleveland biopharmaceutical company Athersys, whose stock rose 821 percent, according to a press release by Burrill & Co.

Or more accurately, they can hear the endgame.

In December, a scientific panel advising the Food and Drug Administration unanimously recommended the agency approve the company’s Esteem technology, an implantable device designed to help patients with moderate to severe hearing loss. The decision paves the way for the FDA to formally approve Esteem in February, allowing Envoy to start selling the $30,000 system the following month.

Investors always say they believe in a big payday. But these aren’t just any investors: Minnesota Timberwolves owner and billionaire Glen Taylor owns 15 percent of  Envoy; Roger Lucas of  biotech firm Techne Corp. control a 19 percent stake; former Medtronic Inc. vice chairman Glen Nelson, a prolific investor, owns a little under 1 percent.

In an interview, Roger Lucas, a former senior vice president and chief scientific officer for Techne, said he believes Envoy will go public in two years and reach a $3 billion to $5 billion market cap. He has invested $15 million in Envoy.

“I was looking for a biological solution beyond hearing aids,” Lucas said.

Despite Lucas’ optimism and Esteem’s promising clinical results, significant obstacles remain. Doctors may not embrace such a new technology. At $30,000, Esteem costs more than a pacemaker (not to mention most cars,) and not likely to win reimbursement, experts say. As a result, Envoy, which plans to market Esteem directly to consumers through TV and radio ads, will finance the procedures.

“The cost is high,”  said Dr. Stephanie Lockhart, director of audiology at the University of Cincinnati’s Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. “Traditional hearing aids range in price from a few hundred dollars each up to about $3,000. Most insurance companies do not cover the cost of hearing aids. I question whether the implantable device would be covered.”

And any surgery carries risk, Lockhart said.

“In this surgery, the ossicular chain (three small bones in the middle ear), are disturbed,” she said. “Although I’m sure that the device failure rate would be low, in the event that the device did fail, the patient would be left with additional hearing loss.”

Esteem is worth the risk and money, especially in treating conductive and/or sensorineural hearing loss, said Envoy CEO Patrick Spearman.  In normal hearing, sound causes the ear drum to vibrate, moving fluid inside the cochlea, an oval-shaped area in the inner ear. The motion prompts tiny hairs to touch nerve endings, which converts the movement into electric signals sent to the brain.

In conductive hearing loss, sound moving through outer and middle ear is blocked. Sensorineural hearing loss is more severe–the hairs don’t vibrate properly, disrupting the electric signals to the brain.

Hearing aids, which rely on microphones to amplify sound, are flawed devices because they don’t effectively filter out unwanted noise, Spearman said.

“It’s like listening to a megaphone or the [fast food restaurant] drive-through speaker,” he said.

In addition, wearing hearing aids carry a social stigma, Spearman said. That’s why Envoy named its device Esteem because it builds self confidence–people can’t see Esteem because the entire system is implanted in the ear. Newer generation cochlear implant devices like Nucleus Freedom and Baha Cordelle require patients to wear external components.

“When you wear glasses, people don’t think you’re disabled because [they think the glasses] work,” Spearman said. “Esteem accomplishes what hearing aids set out to do but haven’t been able to do.”

Here’s how Esteem works: The system consists of a sensor, sound processor and driver. The sensor picks up vibrations from the ear drum and converts them into electric signals. The sound processor, a specially designed computer chip, cleans up the signals and boosts its power. Finally, the driver converts the signals back into mechanical vibrations and transmits them into the cochlea.

“Using the natural ear is the number one advantage we have,” Spearman said.

The patient can turn on/off Esteem through a remote control-like device and adjust volume and personal settings.

Dr. Lockhart of the University of Cincinnati praised Esteem’s design.

“The device is invisible,” she said. “Many people shy away from hearing aids because of the stigma. With traditional hearing aids you must remove the devices when you swim, shower, or sleep. Also, excessive perspiration can be harmful to the hearing aids. There would be no daily maintenance required [like] cleaning. Since there is nothing that has to be inserted into the ear canal, this device would be comfortable to wear.”

One feature that sets Esteem apart is its battery, which is based on pacemaker technology. That’s not surprising since the company, first called St. Croix Medical, was founded in 1995 by Ted Adams, a former vice president of research and development for Cardiac Pacemakers and St. Jude Medical and director of engineering for Medtronic Inc.

Designing a piezoelectric battery small enough for the ear took Envoy several years to develop. Because of its miniature size, the battery had to consume less power and perform reliably. The company says Esteem’s battery lasts six years (a replacement battery could cost $2,000), while hearing aids and other cochlear implants must be recharged.

Envoy faced other challenges. Normally, companies first perfect their technology on animals, something that can’t be done with a hearing device (pigs and rats don’t understand humans anyway). During Envoy’s first clinical trial, the driver broke loose in several patients. The company says it has fixed the problem.

Spearman says Envoy’s clinical data shows Esteem improved patients Speech Reception Threshold scores by an average of 11 decibels over hearing aids. While the FDA won’t yet allow Envoy to claim Esteem is superior to hearing aids, Spearman is confident the agency will do so.

Selling Esteem might be tougher than creating the technology.

“The biggest problem is getting surgeons up to speed,” Lucas said. “That will be the bottleneck. It is fairly difficult to implant properly.”

Assuming doctors want to learn. Some physicians are reluctant to try new technologies, especially if there’s conflicting opinions on safety and performance, Spearman said.

According to a December 2008 survey of 594 patients who received cochlear implants, only 46 percent of respondents said a audiologist or hearing instrument specialist referred them to the technology compared to 34 percent from a primary care doctor or a ear, nose and throat specialist. Twenty percent reported no professional referral, instead relying on friends, family and the Internet.

“The market penetration of cochlear implants is surprisingly low,” said the survey, conducted by Cochlear Americas and published in The Hearing Review. “Many patients who fall within the current candidacy range are never referred to evaluation for a cochlear implant. And that can present problems for the patient and dispensing professional.”

Normally, medical device companies market their technology to doctors, with hopes they will recommend them to patients. However, Envoy will take its message directly to the consumer through mass radio and TV ads.

“The patient will decide whether this works or not, not the medical community,” Spearman said.

Envoy will not even bother to apply for reimbursement. To help patients afford the $30,000 device and operation, the company will offer customers financing options.

“I think that this may be a good solution for people who are unsuccessful with hearing aids and who can afford the technology,” Dr. Lockhart said.

Dr. Sid Khosla

University of Cincinnati laryngologist Dr. Sid Khosla and other researchers will use a 5-year, $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue interdisciplinary partnerships studying the causes of severe voice disorders and the most effective ways to treat them, according to a university press release.

Ohio could be on the verge of being the 18th state to pass legislation requiring physicians to give expectant mothers information on banking umbilical-cord blood, which is used to treat diseases of the blood and immune system and shows potential in treating other life-threatening ailments, according to the Plain Dealer.

The sale of Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati to a subsidiary of Catholic Healthcare Partners will be postponed until March 1 in response to a request by Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray, according to a spokesman for the hospital’s owner, the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati, Modern Healthcare reported.

People who are sick will have an easier, and cheaper, time buying a health plan, starting Jan. 1, because of changes made by the Ohio legislature, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Saint Luke’s Foundation in Cleveland has named a new chairman — Thomas Rathbone, a foundation trustee since 2005, according to Crain’s Cleveland Business.

We’ve been working for weeks building a prototype, and developing the experimental conditions in which we could test the prototype. The test conditions were as close to real life as we could get in a system scaled down in size to keep costs reasonable and manageable electronics in the prototype.

We had 5 scientists involved in overseeing the electronics, probes, monitors and the model system being examined. As a first ever experiment none of us knew what to do, what our roles really were, what to expect or even when things would be “done.” I think everyone felt we knew what a success would look like and that there were a thousand ways it would fail, but as with most very new things the failures are expected but provide information for the next try. For example on an earlier dry run to test the equipment we found out that the prototype seemed to work better with the $50.00 components as opposed to the $1000.00 parts. Give me a call if you need some slightly used $1000.00 parts.

Much to our astonishment we saw a huge, consistent and importantly explainable response with the prototype. Explainable is a key aspect to the success in that we need to summarize and report the results to make them useful. Random unexplainable results are not useful, our results need to be useful and not random, which they are.

What we saw is a simple numeric change. Picture a bunch of eyes looking at a slot machine and the wheel comes up with three $$$; a jackpot. We saw a number come up on the computer screen that represented a jackpot. Computer programs examined and confirmed the results and the model performed admirably.

What we saw is hard to explain without getting too technical and is also being patented, so it is confidential. But one little datum represented weeks of work, many hours of detailed planning and much excitement. Well, I say excitement but that is relative for us stuffy science geek types.

The postscript to one datum is that one experiment is not significant. We need to reproduce the results multiple times, determine prototype tolerances, specs and optimize performance. That will take months of work and eventually seeing the same response as today’s will become routine. But it was a good day and something to be savored.

Cuyahoga County is close to a land deal that could keep a proposed medical mart off Cleveland’s downtown Mall, according to the Cleveland Plain  Dealer. By next week, the county could sign an option to buy an office building and parking garage for the mart.

Jewish Hospital and Mercy Health Partners in Cincinnati said Thursday they would accept a two-month delay in their merger, setting a “firm closing date” of March 1 with the expectations that the University of Cincinnati and University Hospital could find new partners by then, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Dr. Patrick McCarthy, a well-known heart surgeon formerly of the Cleveland Clinic, who now is at the center of a rift with a colleague that has gained national attention, is staying at Northwestern Memorial Hospital despite courting other academic hospitals in the last year about possibly leaving the Chicago medical center, according to the Chicago Tribune.

A recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration safety alert recommending that hospitals using System 1, a STERIS Corp. medical instrument sterilizer, find alternatives to the system, “blindsided the company,” said Daniel Owczarski, a device analyst at Avondale Partners who covers STERIS, according to FDA News.

Ohio ranked in the top half of states for the ability of its public health system to handle emergencies, though public-health capacity is declining across the country, according to a HealthDay report in BusinessWeek.

Several Ohio hospitals were listed among 45 of the nation’s best for health information technology quality by Health IT watchdog group Leapfrog, according to Healthcare IT News.

The Technology Transfer Office at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland recently hosted a 10-person delegation from Italy, according to the university’s news blog.

The Cincinnati hospital and health system had hoped to complete their $180 million merger shortly after New Year’s Day, the Enquirer reported Tuesday. Cordray, whose office is reviewing the merger, wants the two institutions to wait to merge until mediation between Jewish Hospital and University Hospital has a chance to work.

The Ohio attorney general has said for months that he would stay out of the quarrel between Jewish Hospital and University Hospital, which doesn’t want Jewish to leave the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, to which both hospitals belong. Late last month, Cordray went so far as to suggest Cleveland lawyer Niki Schwartz as a mediator for Health Alliance members and Jewish Hospital on its proposed departure, the Enquirer said.

Both Jewish and University hospitals — in that order — are listed under the header for the alliance at its Web site, along with Fort Hamilton Hospital, West Chester Medical Center, Drake Center and Alliance Primary Care.

The trouble is, the alliance would fall apart if Jewish Hospital left to join the five-hospital Mercy system, the Enquirer says. And University of Cincinnati leaders worry an alliance collapse could compromise the charity care and education missions at its University Hospital.

“We believe that mediation could lead to a resolution which would minimize any harmful effects on the public that may result from Jewish Hospital’s potential departure,” Cordray wrote in a Dec. 18 letter to Jewish Hospital, asking it to give mediation “a reasonable period of time,” the Enquirer said.

The quarrel illustrates some of the problems of allied hospitals that share operations but not governance. When one member — Jewish Hospital — leaves the alliance, it takes assets, but not necessarily liabilities, with it. Not only is it difficult to split up assets that are used jointly to operate alliance members, but such a split leaves remaining members with fewer assets — and often more liabilities.

An industry expert described the situation like children who are fighting over their parents’ estate. Each child wants a fair piece of the pie. But after the children pay attorneys to ensure equal treatment, there’s less of a pie to divide. “It’s one of those situations where the sum of the parts is not equal to the whole,” the expert said.

The alliance trouble started on July 7 when trustees of the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati selected Mercy Health Partners to buy its Jewish Hospital. The decision followed an 18-month search by the foundation for a buyer.

By being acquired by Mercy, a $750 million hospital system, Jewish Hospital also would join Catholic Healthcare Partners, the largest health system in Ohio and one of the largest nonprofit health care systems nationwide, according to the foundation’s statement, at the time.

Maybe there’s a bit of sour grapes in the mix. The Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati also had tried to buy Jewish Hospital, according to the Business Courier of Cincinnati. The alliance already owns West Chester Medical Center and the Drake Center, the business courier said.