Four UNMC researchers will receive the 2005 Internal Medicine Research Awards for exceptional achievements in research. The researchers and their awards are:
- Ted Mikuls, M.D. — Clinical Investigator Award, given to a faculty member for excellence in clinical research.
- Kusum Kharbanda, Ph.D. — Basic Science Research Award, given to a faculty member for excellence in a basic science (bench) program.
- Apar Ganti, M.D. — Fellowship Research Award, given to a fellow who has demonstrated commitment to quality research.
- Marcus Snow, M.D. — Resident Research Award, given to a resident who has demonstrated excellence in a specific research project.
The awards will be presented Friday, June 10, during the internal medicine grand rounds at noon in the Durham Research Center Auditorium. Each award recipient will have a poster presentation on display beginning at 11:30 a.m. in the building’s atrium.
Grand rounds will be presented following the awards presentation.
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Ted Mikuls, M.D. |
He joined the faculty of UNMC in 2002 as an assistant professor in the department of medicine, section of rheumatology and immunology. Since then he has published 17 papers, received the Arthritis Foundation Investigator Award and an NIH/NIAMS K-23 award. In addition to these two prestigious national grants, he also is the principal investigator on a local Arthritis Foundation grant, as well as a State of Nebraska LB506 grant.
Aside from his work as a staff physician with The Nebraska Medical Center and the Omaha Veterans Administration Medical Center (VAMC), Dr. Mikuls is a mentor for the UNMC summer undergraduate research program and volunteer faculty member with UNMC’s student-run SHARING Clinic.
In 2004 Dr. Mikuls received the top teacher award from the Department of Internal Medicine.
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Kusum Kharbanda, Ph.D. |
Dr. Kharbanda is a member of the VA Alcohol Research Center and principal investigator on a VAMC Merit Award looking at the inflammatory and pro-fibrogenic responses to MAA-Protein Adducts.
Dr. Kharbanda recently organized and, this month, will chair a scientific session at the national meeting of The Research Society on Alcoholism on alcohol and liver methionine metabolism. She recently was chosen to be one of the key speakers in an NIH-sponsored symposium in October on the role of betaine in the treatment of liver disease.
Dr. Kharbanda has published 36 papers in peer-reviewed journals and has been the lead author on 17 of these papers.
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Apar Ganti, M.D. |
In addition, he has published several review articles, including one on follicular lymphoma and another on an analysis of stem cell transplantation for mantle cell lymphoma.
Dr. Ganti has been offered an academic position at UNMC when he finishes his fellowship. He has chosen to focus on lung, head and neck cancer for his specialty once he becomes a faculty member. Prior to that, Dr. Ganti will take a one-month elective at the University of Chicago to learn more about oncology care for head and neck cancer patients.
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Marcus Snow, M.D. |
His primary research project has focused on the association of cigarette smoking with serum cytokine expression in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
Recently Dr. Snow authored a report detailing a case of an ANCA-associated disseminated giant cell arteritis, which appears in the “Journal of Clinical Rheumatology.”
He also recently co-authored a review article examining cardiovascular disease in the context of rheumatoid arthritis, published in “Current Opinions in Rheumatology.”
Dr. Snow is a member of the American Medical Association, Metro Omaha Medical Society and the Nebraska Medical Association.