The Research Rainmaker

Research Collaboration on New Treatment for Ovarian Cancer Receives National Support

A team of UTHSC researchers has been awarded $924,000 from the Department of Defense for their work developing a new treatment for ovarian cancer. The project is a collaboration between the labs of Wei Li, PhD, distinguished professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and director of the Drug Discovery Center in the College of Pharmacy, Junming Yue, PhD, associate professor of Pathology in the College of Medicine, and Duane D. Miller, PhD, professor emeritus of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

The project builds on over 10 years of work done by Dr. Li and Dr. Miller to develop new compounds that target and disrupt microtubules in cancer cells. An investigational new drug, sabizabulin, previously known as VERU-111, is currently under multiple clinical trials. Now, the team will be testing a newer generation of this clinical candidate against metastatic and drug-resistant ovarian cancer.

Key to securing project funding is the contribution from Dr. Yue, a campus animal-model expert who has done extensive in vivo research in a mouse model of ovarian cancer. For this project, Dr. Yue generated a unique model that closely replicates the characteristics of human ovarian cancer, including the accumulation of bloody fluid in the abdomen, aggressive primary ovarian tumors, and metastasis throughout the membrane lining the abdominal cavity. “This model can be used to assess and screen any preclinical drugs for ovarian cancer treatment, including the drugs from Dr. Li’s lab,” Dr. Yue said. “Particularly, this model can be utilized to evaluate drug efficacy by determining the survival curve.”

“We are very excited to receive this grant which will allow our team to evaluate our lead compound in highly clinically relevant models of aggressive ovarian cancer,” Dr. Li said. “We also appreciate the initial support from both the Drug Discovery Center and the campus, and the interactions with our industry partner, Veru, Inc.”

UTHSC Advisory Board Approves 2023-2028 Strategic Plan

The University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s Advisory Board Friday unanimously approved the UTHSC 2023-2028 Strategic Plan, a comprehensive roadmap 18 months in development that defines the institution’s direction for the future. The plan will go before the UT Board of Trustees for a final vote at its meeting in June, which is set for UTHSC’s Memphis campus.

“This institution has a great historic presence and a positive future ahead of it,” Chancellor Peter Buckley, MD, said introducing the plan to the board. He said the plan was a “team effort” led by Cindy Russell, PhD, vice chancellor for Academic, Faculty, and Student Affairs. “I want to say a public thank you to Cindy.” 

Dr. Russell gave a masterful presentation of the strategic plan, explaining its context and content, and also describing the remarkably inclusive planning process involving all UTHSC communities. “More than 700 faculty, staff, students, and community members participated in the planning process,” she said. 

This long-term collaborative process defined UTHSC’s new vision in four words: Healthy Tennesseans. Thriving Communities. 

The plan centers on five strategic pillars: Engaging communities, educational excellence, expanding research, advancing health, and developing talent. The pillars rest on a new, streamlined mission statement and encompass new values that reflect the UT System’s Be One UT values with added focus on the health sciences.

“The plan will not be dormant,” Dr. Russell said. “We will develop performance indicators to show visible progress.” The strategic plan will also provide a point of reference and instructional support for forthcoming UTHSC strategic planning in the individual colleges.

Phil Wenk, DDS, board chair, chief executive officer of Delta Dental of Tennessee, and an alumnus of the UTHSC College of Dentistry, said the plan is “well-developed and can be an excellent roadmap for the future. . . a plan that fits to the institutional vision will be successful.”

Dr. Russell also highlighted that the plan is on track to be completed on time and indicated that following an upcoming presentation and discussion of the plan with UT System President Randy Boyd and his executive leadership team, the plan will be presented to the UT System Board of Trustees when they convene next month in Memphis.

Earlier in the meeting the board unanimously approved a proposed $680,907,300 operating budget for FY24, which includes a 1.5% increase for in-state and out-of-state-tuition.

Senior Vice Chancellor for Finance and Chief Financial Officer Anthony A. Ferrara, CPA, MAS, said UTHSC has not raised tuition in four years, and while state appropriations have been generous, the increase reflects inflationary pressures on the university. All funds raised from the increase would be earmarked for instructional needs, he said. 

“None of us want to raise tuition, but the inevitability of it is we have to,” Dr. Wenk said.

Elizabeth Evans, the student representative on the board, said student government leaders were given advance notice of the proposed increase and approved it. “I appreciate letting us be a part of the discussion,” she said.

The spring meeting of the board also included updates from the chancellor and the deans about recent accomplishments at UTHSC. Chancellor Buckley noted that the university has three new leaders: Reginald Frye, College of Pharmacy dean; Brigitte Grant, vice chancellor for Advancement; and Paul Wesolowski, vice chancellor for Strategic Partnerships.

The chancellor and board expressed appreciation to Brad Boucher, PharmD, FCCP, FNAP, MCCM, for his service as interim dean of the College of Pharmacy, and Charles “Charley” Deal, PhD, for serving as the interim vice chancellor for Advancement. “Under their leadership, both Advancement and the College of Pharmacy have moved forward. I am very grateful to them both,” the chancellor said, presenting them with certificates of appreciation.

The deans and leadership spoke about accomplishments and initiatives in their areas. Highlights included:

• “This year has been a wonderful year for us,” Dr. Deal said, reporting on the activities of the Office of Advancement. As of May 1, philanthropy has reached $26.5 million, surpassing the goal for the fiscal year. “These figures are indicative of what people feel about the leadership on this campus,” he said.
• Representing the College of Dentistry, Paul Luepke, DDS, interim associate dean of Clinical Affairs, mentioned the floss cutting and grand opening in April of the new Delta Dental of Tennessee Building on the Memphis campus, as well as the new Kingsport Dental Clinic of the Appalachian Highlands, part of a collaborative effort to increase access to dental care in rural areas of Tennessee. 
• The College of Graduate Health Sciences has seen an uptick in applications and philanthropic support and is working to increase internship opportunities for students, said Dean Donald Thomason, PhD.
• Dean Stephan Alway, PhD, MSc, said enrollment in the College of Health Professions is strong, and interest in the new Pathologists’ Assistant program is high with more than 90 candidates for the 10 positions. 
• U.S. News & World Report has ranked the College of Medicine No. 24 for Best Medical School for Primary Care, said Teresa Hartnett, EdD, associate dean for Finance and Administration in the college. Other rankings, she said, include No. 18 for Most Graduates Practicing in Underserved Areas, No. 46 for its Physician Assistant program, No. 46 for Most Graduates Practicing in Primary Care, and No. 71 for Research.
• Wendy Likes, PhD, DNSc, APRN-Bc, FAANP, dean of the College of Nursing, said the DNP program is ranked No. 23 by U.S. News & World Report. She also said the college has many projects underway, including the UTHSC Nursing Mobile Health unit that was unveiled Thursday and will expand access to health care in Lake and Lauderdale counties.  
• Dr. Boucher said the College of Pharmacy had an excellent residency match with 78 graduates matching and an additional six graduates heading to internships in industry.

The full advisory board meeting is available to view on the UTHSC Advisory Board webpage.

2023 UTHSC Giving Day a Success, $635,000 Raised

Thanks to the generosity of students, alumni, faculty, and staff, the University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s third-annual Giving Day April 25 raised more than $635,000 and exceeded its goal of 1,100 gifts in 24 hours with more than 1,200 donations. The outstanding support helped unlock a $150,000 gift to the university that contributed to the total for the campaign.

 “We had a great success, and your gifts, each one, large or small, make a huge difference, because it affirms our noble mission and sends a compelling message to our communities across the great state of Tennessee that what we do matters,” UTHSC Chancellor Peter Buckley, MD, said in a video message of thanks for the support.

The one-day philanthropic event, which was led by the Office of Advancement, encouraged donors to support the university with gifts of any size. Donations could be made for a specific college — Dentistry, Graduate Health Sciences, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy — or an initiative or program at UTHSC.

Giving Day 2023 comes as UTHSC continues to expand and amplify its longstanding role as the largest educator of health care professionals in Tennessee. Additionally, UTHSC’s faculty and clinicians staff major hospitals across the state. With more than 3,100 students, 880 clinical and educational sites across the state, and 380 researchers, UTHSC is committed to serving the people of Tennessee.

“This year, a record number of alumni, friends, and students invested into the life and vitality of the university by participating in the UTHSC Giving Day challenge,” said Charles “Charley” Deal, PhD, interim vice chancellor for Advancement. “Much like a car, our university needs your ongoing investment as well. The Giving Day Challenge is an important way to invest in our university and help UTHSC in meeting our mission.” 

Since December 2022, the UTHSC advancement team has increased UTHSC’s fundraising by 356%, already surpassing the year-end fundraising target and lining the year up to be one of the top fundraising years in history. The inaugural UTHSC Family Campaign in February, a monthlong effort to encourage donations by faculty, staff, and administrators, surpassed its goal by 124 percent with 620 donors.

On May 1, Brigitte Grant, MBA, joins UTHSC as the new vice chancellor for Advancement. Grant is a seasoned advancement leader in public academic health science, higher education, and non-profit organizations.

UTHSC Researchers Part of Decades-Long Project to Drastically Improve Brain Imaging

After nearly 40 years of research, a team including two researchers from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center has published a process for improving magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) capabilities, allowing the researchers to capture brain images at a higher resolution than ever before.

As a result of the study, scientists can now create images that show unprecedented details of cell types and connections between parts of a mouse’s brain. The researchers believe this can have broad applications in studies of aging and neurogenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, in humans.

“The primary goal was to make sure we have the technology that allows us to do preclinical research more efficiently and at higher resolution, and we’re there now,” said Robert W. Williams, PhD, professor in the UTHSC College of Medicine’s Department of Genetics, Genomics, and Informatics.

More than 20 years ago, Dr. Williams joined forces with G. Allan Johnson, PhD, the leader of Duke University’s Center for In Vivo Microscopy, which started the research project more than a decade earlier. Dr. Williams and his UTHSC colleague David Ashbrook, PhD, were tasked with providing possible applications for Dr. Johnson’s work to devise higher resolution and higher throughput methods to image the brain in the areas of aging and neurodegenerative disease genetics. The study also included six other colleagues from Duke and one each from the University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, Indiana University, and LifeCanvas Technologies.

In an article published recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Johnson, the lead author, describes the two-step process for obtaining such clear brain images. High-computing pipelines merge the improved MR scans, which allow scientists to map the circuits of the brain, with light sheet microscopy, which allows scientists to label groups of brain cells. Combining the complementary techniques is a groundbreaking method that provides a vivid view into what is going on inside the brain.

“By jacking up the resolution, as we have in both the MR and the light sheet, we’re getting closer to where everything is happening in the brain,” Dr. Johnson said. “We are not encumbered by having all of the rest of the population of the human brain to keep us from honing our focus down close to the operational units, whatever they happen to be, of the animal model of interest.”

Not only does the process allow for clearer images, but it also allows the researchers to have a much higher throughput. According to Dr. Williams, “If you tried to do this 10 years ago, it would have been one case a week. Dr. Johnson can process two cases a day, and that’s enough to do some serious, serious science.”

While the technology won’t be used to treat patients with neurogenerative diseases, it is already being used to study those illnesses. Dr. Williams has created mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease that meaningfully replicate the disease in humans. Using the models, the team is investigating whether dietary changes could extend the part of a person’s life in which cognition is intact. With the new imaging techniques, the disease can be studied in the mice in a way Dr. Johnson described as “gloriously simple, but gloriously robust.”

“If you do that study in a clinical population, you’re talking about tens to hundreds of millions of dollars,” he said. “We can now examine these diseases in a much more controlled environment, at orders of magnitude lower cost, and with orders of magnitude higher fidelity.”

The team’s success in improving brain imaging has opened the door for more advanced studying of neurogenetics and of “diseases that are important to all of us,” Dr. Williams said. It is the culmination of decades of work of people from multiple organizations and multiple disciplines — biomedical technology and neurogenetics.

“When you have two completely different areas of research, the sum is considerably more than the parts,” Dr. Johnson said. “The fact that we have two completely different views of the world, two completely different areas of research, but we’ve been able to merge them together, it gives us some capacity that others don’t have.”

Teaching, Research Help Assistant Professor Claire Simpson ‘Pass it Forward’

Claire Simpson, PhD, is an assistant professor so intrinsically interested in her research and its promise for humanity that teaching becomes a happy coincidence of lifestyle. 

“I am passionate about teaching,” said Dr. Simpson, who received a 2021 Excellence in Teaching Award from the Student Government Association Executive Council. “I am passionate about passing on what I know to the next generation. Someone gave me a step up, and if I give someone else a step up, we all pass it forward.”

Dr. Simpson’s research has always been tied to health disparities, but it became more direct when she moved from the National Institutes of Health to the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis. 

Here, she and research colleague, Robert Davis, MD, MPH, in the Department of Genetics, Genomics, and Informatics, made the definitive link between the high-risk gene APOL1 and preeclampsia, a condition that causes dangerously high blood pressure.  

“If untreated, preeclampsia causes organ damage and can damage the fetus, cause miscarriage, and even death,” Dr. Simpson said. 

The risk doubles for women of African descent with two copies of the gene. 

Dr. Simpson’s research has given her graduate students and postdocs opportunities to work for extended periods in Ghana, where much of the work is now unfolding. 

“Dr. Simpson is pleasant and thoughtful, and as I watch her interact with investigators on different continents, I am motivated to model her collaborative approach to research,” said Emmanuella Salia, a postdoctoral scholar in Dr. Simpson’s lab who spent time in Ghana.  

While the link between APOL1 and preeclampsia in women of African descent was long suspected, Dr. Simpson and Dr. Davis found the conclusive evidence in the Memphis CANDLE Study, which includes genetic information from roughly 1,500 mother and baby pairs. Nearly 1,000 of the mothers are of African ancestry. 

“If you can detect it early, you have a much better chance of preventing the disease from progressing. ‘Oh, we need to monitor this woman’s blood pressures on regular basis and catch it if it starts to creep up.’ Early intervention is very important,” Dr. Simpson said. 

Her goal is having an affordable test that identifies the gene mutation early on. 

“There definitely will be diagnostics in these women’s lifetimes. I’m not talking about it taking 30 years. I’m talking about five years,” she said. 

Replicating the early research findings is the tricky part and ultimately produced one of the greatest recognitions of Dr. Simpson’s career, a $1 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2018 to continue building a cohort of African women of child-bearing age in Ghana. She has received an additional $600,000 from the Gates Foundation to fund the study until August.

“The Gates people were quite excited about it,” Dr. Simpson said. “We would be building a cohort that would be the largest in the world of African women with preeclampsia.” 

In three hospitals in Ghana, the two UTHSC researchers are overseeing lab collections from everyday Ghanaian women who travel miles across the countryside for prenatal care. If they have preeclampsia, they join the cohort. If they don’t, they are part of the control group. 

“Right now, we have approximately 700 cases, which is literally about 10 times the size of any cohort out there before we started,” Dr. Simpson said. 

“We’ve got blood. We’ve got urine. We have placenta, and cord blood from the infant. It’s become this gigantic thing,” she said. “We only need blood from the mom and the baby to test for this gene. The reason we collected all these other samples is that we are hoping to create a biorepository that could be used for a lot more questions in the future.” 

Having one copy of the mutation is salvation for people who live in tropical Africa, because it protects them from African sleeping sickness, a fatal if not treated parasitic disease carried by the tsetse fly. 

Two copies – one from the father and one from the mother – doubles the chance of preeclampsia, which threatens both the mother and baby. 

The genetic link to preeclampsia has profound implications for individuals of African descent everywhere in the world. In the United States alone, about 13% of African Americans carry two copies of the gene, which leads researchers to believe that one-eighth of preeclampsia cases in the U.S. are likely associated with APOL1. 

“This could be in the Caribbean, the UK, or someplace else in Europe. It doesn’t matter. If you have significant African ancestry, you are almost certainly at risk,” Dr. Simpson said. 

When the Ghana samples are in, Dr. Simpson will be in charge of the statistical heavy lifting to pinpoint which regions of the human genome are responsible for disease susceptibility or resistance, said Robert Williams, PhD, chair of the Department of Genetics, Genomics and Informatics. 

“She’s a fine mentor for everyone she works with, including me. It’s wonderful to have people like Claire who are very clear about the right way and the wrong way of doing things.” 

Dr. Simpson, who grew up in a low socioeconomic rung in England, says that even 20 years ago, the idea that she could be a successful scientist living in the U.S. was such a reach as to be laughable. 

That’s behind her now, and Memphis is part of the reason.  

“When I was deciding where to go, Memphis, a minority-majority city, was extremely attractive. I felt like this was a place I could do work that was meaningful.” 

Collaboration Researching Angelman Syndrome Publishes Findings, Receives $2.4 Million Award

A three-way research collaboration at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTSHC) is achieving crucial advances in finding a new target for Angelman syndrome, a rare neurogenetic disorder characterized by intellectual disability, balance issues, motor impairment, and debilitating seizures.

Julio Cordero-Morales, PhD, and Valeria Vásquez, PhD, both associate professors of Physiology in the UTHSC College of Medicine, have spent years studying the cellular processes of mechanosensation, the conversion of mechanical stimuli into neuronal signals. These complex processes allow us to interpret and navigate the physical world, enabling us to sense our position in space, maintain our balance, and perform coordinated movements like walking.

The mechanosensitive ion channel PIEZO2 is expressed in sensory neurons. It mediates proprioception (the sense that allows us to know where our bodies are in space) and balance. Mice and humans lacking PIEZO2 expression have an unsteady gait, irregular stride and step length, and unstable posture. This phenotype is shared by individuals suffering from Angelman syndrome, which is caused by the loss of UBE3A gene expression in neurons.

The investigators suspected that there could be a connection and teamed up with Lawrence Reiter, PhD, professor in the Department of Neurology. Dr. Reiter has over 20 years of experience in the Angelman syndrome field. The research was led by a graduate student, Luis Romero, and an instructor, Rebeca Caires Mugarra, PhD.

“Together, we provided several lines of evidence demonstrating that PIEZO2 currents are reduced in Ube3a-deficient mouse neurons and stem cell-derived neurons from individuals with Angelman syndrome,” Dr. Cordero-Morales, lead investigator, said. “Our results demonstrate that PIEZO2 is a potential therapeutic target.”

The team used a dietary fatty acid (linoleic acid) to increase PIEZO2 activity, mechano-excitability, and improve gait in a mouse model of Angelman syndrome. Moreover, the investigators demonstrated that linoleic acid supplementation increased PIEZO2 activity in dental pulp stem cell-derived neurons from multiple individuals with Angelman syndrome, part of a patient repository developed by Dr. Retier.

“Our work represents the first example in which a dietary fatty acid intervention has been used to enhance the function of a mechanosensitive sensory ion channel,” Cordero-Morales said. “We revealed that PIEZO2 function is compromised in Angelman syndrome and that PIEZO2 is a potential pharmacological target for the rescue of ataxia in this neurogenetic disorder.”

The project is gaining national recognition and support. The study findings were published in the article “Linoleic acid improves PIEZO2 dysfunction in a mouse model of Angelman Syndrome” in the March 2023 issue of the journal Nature Communications, and the investigators were recently awarded $2.4 million by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Grant Named Vice Chancellor for Advancement at UTHSC, UT Foundation

After a nationwide search, Brigitte Grant, a seasoned advancement leader in public academic health science, higher education, and non-profit organizations, has been named vice chancellor for advancement at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. 

Grant joins a stellar UT Foundation team of vice chancellors supporting all University of Tennessee campuses on May 1. Her appointment comes at a particularly strategic point, as the UTHSC advancement team has been on an impressive trajectory with recent successes in raising UTHSC’s philanthropic profile and amplifying its reach and impact across Tennessee.

“Brigitte brings a comprehensive understanding of the life-changing impact of private support for an academic health science center, and I’m confident she will strengthen the partnership between the Foundation, UT Health Science Center, and the community,” said UT Foundation President Kerry Witcher.

Grant acknowledged UTHSC’s philanthropic momentum when she interviewed for the vice chancellor position. “The UTHSC advancement team’s recent success is compelling – you are rocking it,” she said.

Since December 2022, the UTHSC advancement team has increased UTHSC’s fundraising by more than 331%, already surpassing the year-end fundraising target and lining the year up to be one of the top fundraising years in history. In February, UTHSC conducted its inaugural Family Campaign, a monthlong effort to encourage donations by faculty, staff, and administrators, as a reflection of their pride in the accomplishments of their institution. This first-ever Family Campaign surpassed its goal by 124 percent with 620 donors.

The momentum has continued to build with internal and external training in philanthropy for the UTHSC advancement team and Health Science Center deans, as well as a pronounced increase in communications highlighting UTHSC’s impact and statewide presence and illustrating the theme “Memphis is our home …Tennessee is our campus.” Collectively, these efforts, along with the value of an academic health science center as evidenced during the COVID-19 pandemic, provide a favorable environment for furthering health sciences philanthropy.

“Philanthropy is now a top priority at UTHSC,” said Chancellor Peter Buckley, MD. “UTHSC is on our way, and Brigitte has the skills, leadership, and passion for our noble mission to lead the charge alongside her dedicated team.” In building on UTHSC’s momentum, Grant, in her inspirational remarks, encouraged the university community to “be bold” and to magnify its success, growing partnerships and collaborations and building a philanthropic culture based on relationships and innovative ideas.

“The generosity and support of our alumni and community donors can be transformative,” Chancellor Buckley added. “Giving opens doors and creates remarkable opportunities for our great students, faculty, and communities, and I am thrilled to have Brigitte join our team to advance these relationships.”

As Tennessee’s only statewide, public academic health science institution, UTHSC is vital to Tennessee and is the largest educator of health care professionals across the state. Additionally, UTHSC’s clinical faculty and more than 1,400 residents and fellows staff major hospitals in Memphis and across Tennessee. With six colleges – Dentistry, Health Professions, Graduate Health Sciences, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy ­– UTHSC has more than 3,100 students, who are Tennessee’s future health care workforce and more than 380 researchers working on cures for diseases that plague Tennesseans today.  

The legacy and statewide impact of UTHSC is compelling, and as the chief advancement officer at UTHSC, Grant will build on this legacy providing the leadership and coordination of the development and alumni programs with the six college deans and in collaboration with the UTHSC senior leadership team, as well as health care and community partners. Also, the University of Tennessee Foundation provides excellent leadership and support in working closely with the UT System president and the chancellor for each campus to identify strategic private support priorities, create fundraising strategies and tactics, and implement development programs.

“Dr. Peter Buckley is setting a bold vision for UTHSC, and I am thrilled with the opportunity to engage with constituents and leverage partnerships across the state to bring that vision to life.”

Brigitte Grant

Most recently, Grant was instrumental in the completion of a $500 million campaign at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, including the establishment of over 100 new endowments and a transformational gift of $25 million.

Grant received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology from Illinois State University and an MBA from Bradley University. She has held development positions at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and University of Illinois at Chicago, as well as over 20 years with the Children’s Home Association of Illinois.

With UTHSC Strategic Planning process nearing completion and several recent academic successes and impressive recognitions, philanthropic giving is playing a major role now in transforming UTHSC and improving health care across the state. Building upon the momentum from a $53 million Tennessee Department of Health grant for the “Healthy Smiles Initiative” to increase the dental workforce in Tennessee, UTHSC next month will formally open the $45 million Delta Dental of Tennessee Building. Under the leadership of Delta Dental CEO Phil Wenk, DDS, chair of the UTHSC Advisory Board, immediate past chair of the UT Foundation Board of Directors, and an alumnus of the UTHSC College of Dentistry, Delta Dental of Tennessee provided $6.3 million for construction costs and $1.4 million for equipment for the building on the Memphis campus.

“This very generous support, coupled with the tremendous giving by our College of Dentistry alumni all across Tennessee and the outstanding support of the Tennessee Department of Health and the Tennessee Legislature, allows us to have more space and to have state-of-the-art equipment to train the dental workforce for Tennessee and Arkansas,” Chancellor Buckley said. It also sets a compelling example of return on investment for other organizations and individuals to follow in considering philanthropic giving to UTHSC.

“Philanthropic support and public-private partnerships to expand our facilities and grow our training are a win-win for the university, and ultimately, the people we serve,” Dr. Wenk said. “And Brigitte is joining a committed team at UTHSC.”

It is also noteworthy that UTHSC’s recent momentum in advancement had been galvanized by Charles “Charley” Deal, PhD, who has served as the interim vice chancellor for advancement at UTHSC, while also retaining his position at UT Martin as the vice chancellor for university advancement.

“We are grateful that Charley shared his expertise and collegial spirit with UTHSC over the last few months,” UT Foundation President Witcher said. “Remarkably, and with great enthusiasm, Charley has done two jobs expertly and has made a major impact through raising our philanthropic profile.”

Dr. Deal’s leadership was embraced by the UTHSC advancement team and contributed to their highly impressive upward trajectory in fundraising. “Charley’s service has been invaluable during this transition,” Chancellor Buckley added. 

“It has been an honor to serve as interim vice chancellor, fulfilling President Randy Boyd’s vision of the Be One UT motto,” Dr. Deal said. “Brigitte will not only be a wonderful colleague, trusted partner, and champion for the UTHSC advancement team, but someone who inspires, and she and her team will elevate the philanthropic profile of UTHSC.”

UTHSC Researchers Uncover How Celebrities Influenced Public Opinions on COVID-19 Vaccines

Research conducted at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center is receiving national attention for explaining how celebrities may have influenced the public’s opinions of COVID-19 vaccines before, during, and after their development.

According to the study, published in the journal BMJ Health & Care Informatics and covered by CNN, Medpage Today, and other news outlets, the most influential people who shared social media posts about the vaccines conveyed a message that was overall more negative than positive.

“This is one of the biggest public health concerns,” said the study’s lead investigator, Arash Shaban-Nejad, PhD, MPH, associate professor and director of Population and Precision Health in the UTHSC-Oak Ridge National Laboratory Center for Biomedical Informatics. “Misconceptions, misinformation, and disinformation impact and even paralyze many of the public health efforts and put the public’s health in danger.”

The team of researchers examined nearly 13 million tweets from the first two years of the pandemic and identified a group of 12 entertainers, athletes, politicians, and news personnel who were the most influential people to post about COVID and the vaccines on the platform. According to Dr. Shaban-Nejad, those individuals publicly made statements that were either anti-vaccine in nature or were identified as misinformation.

Those individuals, described by the researchers as people in the public eye (PIPE), included rapper Nicki Minaj and football player Aaron Rodgers, who shared the highest number of negative comments, according to the study. Tweets mentioning former President Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz received the most likes, totaling more than 122,000, which suggests they had the highest impact in the group.

The other PIPE the researchers found made frequent anti-vaccine statements were singer Eric Clapton, tennis player Novak Djokovic, Sen. Rand Paul, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, TV host Tucker Carlson, commentator Joe Rogan, radio host Phil Valentine, and commentator Candace Owens.

“Our findings affirm other studies on the impact celebrities have on different things. They potentially can be very helpful, for example, in helping public health authorities send messages to the public, but if they are misguided or are pushing a specific agenda, they can have a very negative health impact on the population.”

Arash Shaban-Nejad, PhD, MPH

According to Dr. Shaban-Nejad, public health should be a nonpartisan matter. He encourages public figures to avoid weaponizing public health to advance their individual, ideological, political, or economic agenda, and he urges the public to seek out information from legitimate public health and medical sources, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and local hospitals and doctors.

Dr. Shaban-Nejad hopes this study exposes the need for updated policies and regulation of public health messaging. “Public health should have very clear messaging, and the message should be customized based on different populations,” he said. “It shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all approach. We have to find a way to send a message to the public in clear and accessible language.”

The study’s other authors are Brianna White, MPH, research coordinator at the UTHSC-ORNL Population Health Intelligence Lab; Robert Davis, MD, MPH, founding director of the UTHSC-ORNL Center for Biomedical Informatics; Parya Zareie from the UTHSC College of Medicine; Chad Melton, PhD, from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and Robert Bednarczyk, PhD, from Emory University.

Paul Wesolowski Named Vice Chancellor for Strategic Partnerships

After a national search, Paul J. Wesolowski, MBA, an accomplished health care leader, has been named the first-ever Vice Chancellor for Strategic Partnerships at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. The new position reflects UTHSC’s commitment to strengthening and expanding the clinical, educational, and all strategic partnerships across the state that are vital to its mission to improve the health of all Tennesseans.

Wesolowski, who joins UTHSC on May 1, has more than 35 years of experience in hospital and health care leadership, administration, and management. He served as the senior vice president and chief operating officer for the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Health System in Richmond from 2017 to 2022, where he was responsible for $1.7 billion in managed services and 8,500 full-time employees. Prior to that, he was the vice president for professional services at the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals of the VCU Health System from 2012-2017. In addition to overseeing operations at VCU Health, a Level 1 hospital with 26,000 surgeries and almost 100,000 emergency visits annually and multiple national recognitions for quality care, Wesolowski also played a pivotal role in VCU Health’s community support and outreach during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I am really excited for the opportunity to come to Memphis and work in this great community and also all across the state for UT Health Science Center,” Wesolowski said. “I think it is a unique opportunity to really build and improve health care for all Tennesseans. There is huge strategic potential in UT Health Science Center’s having partnerships with multiple hospitals, because we can cover a broader geographic region and offer our trainees so many excellent opportunities.”

As the largest educator of health care professionals across the state, with six colleges – Dentistry, Graduate Health Sciences, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy – UTHSC’s faculty and more than 1,400 residents and fellows staff major hospitals in Memphis and across Tennessee. 

UTHSC’s main campus is in Memphis, where it has longtime clinical and educational partnerships with hospitals enabling a comprehensive health-care ecosystem that includes Regional One Health, Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, Memphis Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Baptist Memorial Healthcare, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, and St. Francis Hospital, as well as multiple specialty clinics, physician practice groups, community, and public health programs. Just last week, UTHSC was honored by Collierville’s Chamber of Commerce for its powerful regional impact, and UTHSC is advancing its community engagement and impact in Memphis and beyond – a strategic imperative that the new Vice Chancellor for Strategic Partnerships will lead.

The university also has campuses in Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga, with clinical and educational partnerships at major hospitals, including Ascension Saint Thomas Hospital in Nashville, Erlanger Health System in Chattanooga, the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, and West Tennessee Healthcare – Jackson Madison County Hospital in Jackson, as well as more than 880 clinical-educational training sites in communities across Tennessee, all supported through strategic partnerships. The Vice Chancellor for Strategic Partnerships will enable these vital relationships to thrive and to broaden UTHSC’s impact in communities all across the great state of Tennessee.

“Partnerships are powerful,” said UTHSC Chancellor Peter Buckley, MD. “We exist in partnerships. Furthermore, we can’t do what we do without our partners, and what we do is vital to Tennessee. As our first-ever Vice Chancellor for Strategic Partnerships, Paul will lead these partnerships in collaboration with our deans and other campus leaders, as we seek to expand our impact on the health of Tennesseans, from the major cities to the rural areas of our state.”

The new vice chancellor position is the result of an international consultant’s recommendation for supporting, unifying, and increasing UTHSC’s partner relationships. The vice chancellor will work with hospitals, physician groups, community health, and health system partners to build and expand clinical programs of excellence; develop community engagement and outreach services; and support alliances that enhance research opportunities. The vice chancellor will also be an engaged partner in civic and community activities, enabling new opportunities for UTHSC to collaborate and serve.

“Paul is a proven health care leader with decades of experience in building relationships essential to improving institutions and forging new affiliations. His outstanding work at VCU and many other health care organizations during his career bodes well for the impact he will have at UTHSC. We are thrilled he is joining us in our noble and essential mission.”

Chancellor Buckley

“Collaborations and partnerships are essential for this institution and its continued progress and for strengthening our relationships with civic and business communities across Tennessee,” said Phil Wenk, DDS, CEO of Delta Dental of Tennessee, and chair of the UTHSC Advisory Board. “The new vice chancellor for strategic partnerships is a position that will set UTHSC up for future success, and Paul is the right person to take on this new exciting role.” 

Wesolowski graduated from The Pennsylvania State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Management. He holds a Master’s in Business Administration from Saint Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania.

He began his career as the kitchen production manager at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, a renowned children’s facility. The food services position introduced him to hospital operations and service management and allowed him to grow skills in both. “One of the hallmarks of my career is I haven’t always been the expert in what I’ve had to do, and so I’ve strived to bring others together to harness talent in addressing complex questions,” he said. “I see myself as a servant leader.”

During his career, Wesolowski has served as a leader in several health care institutions, including as the corporate vice president of ambulatory operations and business development for Health Alliance Hospital in Leominster, Massachusetts, with approximately 1,600 employees and 150 acute-care beds. He also was vice president for operations at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, annually ranked the nation’s No. 1 rehabilitation hospital by U. S. News & World Report since 1991. Also, while at VCU, he forged a highly innovative new partnership with Sheltering Arms Rehabilitation – also involving Richmond’s Veteran’s Affairs Health System – to enable a more comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach to care that involves specialists in all the health sciences collaborating together. 

“I’m really passionate about public health and health care in general and pursuing excellence and I do think we do this best collectively as a team. I go back to that team philosophy. In operations, it’s all about the team. I think, as we look to improve health for all individuals, it’s a group effort.”

Paul Wesolowski

Reflecting the many stakeholders for this new role, the search committee had very broad representation and was superbly chaired by Wendy Likes, PhD, DNSc, dean of the College of Nursing, and Nicholas Verne, MD, chair of the Department of Medicine in the College of Medicine, with strategic input from many interviewees across all campuses, partners, and communities. “Thank you to Wendy and Nick and to the entire search committee, and of course, also to our many colleagues and friends, who came together to help us select an outstanding leader for this important new position for our institution and for Tennessee,” Chancellor Buckley said.