Latest Research News

Department of Pediatrics faculty member Dr. Jennifer Yee (Division of Pediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism) and former faculty member Dr. Michael Kaback (Division of Medical Genetics) will be honored at the LA BioMed 7th Annual Legends 2010 event.

Join the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center for a memorable evening celebrating the distinguished service and the many contributions of LA BioMed’s and Harbor-UCLA’s physician-researchers.

The 7th Annual Legends 2010 Event

Thursday, May 20, 2010 - 6:30 p.m.
Trump National Golf Club
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

For more information and tickets ($175 per person) please contact:
Lisa Bosnich
Office of Institutional Advancement
LA BioMed
310.222.4240
lbosnich@LABioMed.org

(RSVP form attached below.)

This year’s honorees include:

Dr. Michael M. Kaback, Department of Pediatrics (Medical Genetics), 1972-1986

On March 1, Terence (Terry) Doherty joined the LA BioMed staff as the Director for Interdisciplinary Research within the President’s Office. He has been given the monumental task of altering LA BioMed’s research funding landscape. His charge is to increase the grant portfolio of LA BioMed, especially from federal sources.

Terry is a veteran of Harbor-UCLA, having worked in the cath lab under Bill French in the 1990’s. During much of this period, he worked on various research projects as well, including some of the pioneering investigations on using heart scans to detect coronary calcification. For the past decade, Terry served at Cedars-Sinai, first in a basic cardiology research lab, and then as a grant writer and promoter of collaborative research. The significant increases in NIH funding achieved by Cedars-Sinai in the past five years are in large part due to Terry’s efforts. We are looking forward to his having the same effect at LA BioMed.

Two papers have recently been published or in press, co-authored by Dr. Beatrice Tetteh, PL-2.

The first (Lutfiyya et al) was a cross-sectional analysis of diabetes care in rural versus urban environments. The study, published in the October 2009 issue of the journal Primary Health Care Research & Development, found that diabetes care was more likely to be inadequate in patients living in rural areas (OR 1.205). Risk factors included being under 40 years of age, male gender, Caucasian race, not a high school graduate, not partnered, without health insurance, inactive or without an identified health care provider, and that diabetes care in rural areas was more affected by patients deferring routine care appointments for cost issues. This study may have important implications for the role of health care reform in improving diabetes care, and shows the need for outreach into rural parts of the country.

The second paper (Ezra et al), currently in press for the American Journal of Medical Genetics (part A). The paper is a case report of a patient with spinal cord compression due to hereditary multiple exostoses.

Harbor-UCLA Pediatrics will once again be well-represented at the Western Society for Pediatric Research Annual Meeting January 27-30, 2010, in Carmel, CA.

On Friday, Jan. 29, Dr. Jennifer Yee (faculty, Div. Pediatr. Endocrinology) will speak on "In vivo and ex vivo models of enhanced adipocyte differentiation in intrauterine growth restricted neonatal rats" at 8:45 am at the Carlson Hall (Church of the Wayfarer).

Dr. John Torday (Faculty, Div. Neonatology) will lecture on "Evolutionary biology as a cipher for neonatal lung biology and disease" at 9:15 at Sanctuary (All Saints Church).

Dr. Nghia Truong (fellow, Div. Neonatology) will present his research, "Postnatal rosiglitazone administration to neonatal rat pups does not alter the adult metabolic phenotype" at 11:45 at Sanctuary. Dr. Truong's research mentor is Dr. Virender Rehan (Div. Neonatology).