Recent faculty additions, August-September 2018

The Department of Internal Medicine would like to introduce our newest members who joined in the months of August and September (start dates in parentheses). We are pleased to welcome them to the department. Karima Ait Aissa, PhD – Associate (9-17-18) Dr. Karima Ait Aissa joins the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine having just completed a […]

Celebrating the Alpert Prize

Michael Welsh, MD, described the day in 1990 he went to then-Chair of Internal Medicine Dr. Frank Abboud to ask for a sabbatical. “He said, ‘OK, when are you gonna go?’ I said, ‘Next week.’” After Dr. Abboud absorbed that, he asked Dr. Welsh where he was going. “And I said, ‘Nowhere, I’m going into […]

I’M IOWA – Your HR Newsletter – November 2018

New Volunteer Time Release Policy A new Volunteer Time Release for university employees was recently posted to the University Operations Manual. As proposed by University Staff Council and adopted by the president, the policy is intended to allow university employees to volunteer in support of university-sponsored events, whether directly serving the university or university activities […]

Helminth-Induced Production of TGF-β and Suppression of Graft-versus-Host Disease Is Dependent on IL-4 Production by Host Cells

Article: Helminth-Induced Production of TGF-β and Suppression of Graft-versus-Host Disease Is Dependent on IL-4 Production by Host Cells Authors: Yue Li, Xiaoqun Guan, Weiren Liu, Hung-Lin Chen, Jamie Truscott, Sonay Beyatli, Ahmed Metwali, George J. Weiner, Nicholas Zavazava, Richard S. Blumberg, Joseph F. Urban Jr., Bruce R. Blazar, David E. Elliott and M. Nedim Ince […]

SHM Poster Session and 2018 Chapter Meeting

For the third year since aligning with the Progress conference, the Iowa Chapter of the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) has produced a poster session over one lunch hour of the two-day event. Each of the four Internal Medicine residency programs in the state responded to the call for abstracts. This year’s session saw an […]

Our Engine of Innovation and Discovery

We regularly share news of work that is supported by basic or translational research grants, but there is a significant portion of breakthrough work being done in our department through clinical trials. The time-consuming process of patient enrollment, follow-up, safety and regulatory compliance that accompanies the evaluation of any new drug or treatment bridges basic […]

ACP Iowa Chapter 2018 Meeting

Coinciding with the 2018 Progress conference, the Iowa Chapter of the American College of Physicians (ACP) held its meeting at the end of the day’s presentations. Though most of the business had been conducted among the chapter leadership the previous evening, there still remained a few more pieces of business. Foremost among them was which […]

Weiss Receives $2.3M R01

Robert Weiss, MD, Professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, has been awarded a five-year, $2.3 million R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This grant provides Dr. Weiss and his team the funds needed to investigate disease processes that lead to failure of heart valves. Based on ongoing work, Dr. Weiss and […]

Highlights from Progress 2018

Now well into its fourth decade, Progress: Learning Together in the 21st Century is one of the most widely attended Continuing Medical Education conferences that Internal Medicine hosts. This is due to a number of factors, not least of which is the department’s collaboration with the College of Pharmacy. The team-ups between pharmacists and physicians […]

Lenert Joins NIH Oversight Board

Petar Lenert, MD, MSc, PhD, has been invited to join the Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) on behalf of the NIH’s National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS). Dr. Lenert will help monitor the safety of clinical trials conducted by the Vasculitis Clinical Research Consortium (VCRC), which encompasses 18 academic medical […]