Students lend a hand for local HIV/AIDS housing program

More than 100 Medical School students volunteered 800 hours in April to beautify AIDS Foundation Houston, Inc’s (AFH) Help House – a home providing permanent housing and vital support services for people living with HIV/AIDS.

The students gave the tired-looking gazebo an overhaul with a metal roof and gutters, providing residents and visitors with a meeting place that can be used rain or shine. Additionally, the students donated new patio furniture including a stunning stone inlaid table which completed the gazebo makeover.

The students also installed three barbeque pits on the property, planted a beautiful variety of plants and flowers, and applied a fresh coat of paint to fences, railings, the front door, and several resident apartments.

“We are truly thankful to The University of Texas Medical School at Houston for again selecting one of our projects to support,” said AFH CEO Kelly McCann. “The students have helped to create a peaceful sanctuary for residents of Help House that will be enjoyed for many years to come.”

For many years now, first-year medical students have taken part in community-based projects. Previously, the students have supported two other AFH housing programs – Burress Street, a permanent housing program for women living with HIV/AIDS, and Project Friendly Haven that supports women and families living with HIV/AIDS in their move from homelessness to permanent housing.

Leading up to this project, the future doctors also volunteered for AIDS Walk Houston, Stone Soup Food Assistance Program, and the Thomas Street Clinic.

For more information about any of these services, please visit www.AIDShelp.org.

New guidelines aim to stop spread of faulty data

In an effort to promote sound science and transparency, new guidelines for publishing real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) data have been issued in the April issue of Clinical Chemistry.

Authored by a group of international scientists, including Dr. Greg Shipley, assistant professor of integrative biology and pharmacology, these guidelines aim to formalize proper practice and publication of the information resulting from these experiments.

The Medical School has been performing qPCR for 13 years at the UT Quantitative Genomics Core Laboratory. “We have been using this technology since it first became commercially available,” Shipley said. “Not only is qPCR truly quantitative, but it is much less labor intensive than previous methods to look at individual genes (DNA) or gene transcripts (RNAs) with much higher throughput.”

Since qPCR’s rapid adoption and ubiquitous spread from core labs to individual labs as the instruments became smaller and less expensive, there have been no real fixed guidelines regarding training or publishing.

“It has gotten to the point where very sketchy information has been published with no true oversight,” Shipley said. “The ultimate example was the unfounded fear of a linkage between the measles vaccine and autism, which was based on very faulty real-time qPCR data and has since been refuted. However, there are many children that were not vaccinated because of this fear and some of them have paid a terrible price.”

Real-time qPCR is considered the gold standard for nucleic acid quantification.

“So, for example, if you find a hit from a microarray or other screening method (eg., siRNA knockdown), those results have to be validated using qPCR or they are not accepted by the scientific community nor the FDA,” Shipley explained.

“Investigators will often want to know what is going on at the transcript level when they do protein studies as well. However, in mammals there is not a strict linkage between transcript and protein measurements due to the many kinds of processing and modification that can occur at the protein level. Scientists who have good real-time qPCR data are encouraged to carry their studies to the protein level for the same reasons, so qPCR data is not an end-all in itself either,” he added.

The UT Quantitative Genomic Core Laboratory was created by Dr. Peter Davies and Shipley in 1999 to do high throughput real-time qPCR of DNA or RNA samples utilizing robotic workstations.

Today, the QGCL provides the same services but the capabilities and uses of real-time qPCR instruments have expanded, and so the lab’s offerings have increased. The core lab also offers quantitative ELISA assays for proteins based on the Meso Scale Discovery (MSD) multiplex plate technology.

For more information on the QGCL, contact Dr. Greg Shipley; Gregory.l.shipley@uth.tmc.edu or 713.500.7458.

— Darla Brown, Medical School Office of Communications

Mendell Fellowship winners announced

Winners of the 2008-2009 David Mendell Fellowship in Psychiatry Award are Dr. Desirae Reeder, PGY-2 psychiatry resident, and Dr. Justin Parrott, PGY-3 psychiatry resident, both residents in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science’s General Adult Psychiatry Residency Program.

The Mendell Fellowship in Family Therapy was established by a Houston family in honor of Dr. David Mendell, a well-known and respected family therapist. For many years, Mendell participated in the child fellowship training activities and was a special contributor to the educational goals the Department of Psychiatry holds in high esteem. The purpose of the fellowship is to provide psychiatric trainees an enriched experience in family therapy.

As recipients of the Mendell Fellowship Award, the fellowship will cover the cost for their attendance at the Texas Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Annual Convention in July at the Omni Fort Worth Hotel in Fort Worth.

METRO changes bus routes in TMC

METRO has ended the Route 326 Circulator, effective Friday, May 29, and reduced the Route 322 TMC Red Line Shuttle service as of June 1.

METRO and Texas Medical Center have reviewed the ridership of these services and have learned that the ridership is minimal and that most of the passengers on these routes can be accommodated on other METRO bus routes traveling through the TMC campus or the METRORail.

The Route 322 Red Shuttle will not see any changes to the service in the morning, but service will be reduced in the evening to every 30 minutes. A ridership analysis shows a significant number of people who ride the shuttle in the morning utilize the METRORail service in the evening, allowing for the changes without reducing overall service for these passengers.

Call 713.635.4000 for schedule.

Commencement 2009

The Medical School’s 36th commencement ceremony showcases the graduates and the school’s rich traditions.