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Milewicz Appointed to Bush Cardiovascular Chair
Research seeks to understand the genetic basis of aneurysms and other vascular diseases
UT Medical School at Houston Dean Stanley Schultz, M.D.,
congratulates Dianna Milewicz, M.D., Ph.D., on her appointment
to the President George Bush Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine.
Photo by Colleen O’Brien
When actor John Ritter died at age 54 from an acute
aortic dissection, Dianna Milewicz, M.D., Ph.D., worked with journalists at The Wall Street Journal on a series of articles to increase awareness of this often overlooked medical condition, which kills an estimated 25,000 Americans a year. The series won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting.
Milewicz is the new holder of the President George Bush Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston. The chair was established in 1998 after the first joint event with Memorial Hermann Hospital raised $1 million in a single night for the President Bush Cardiovascular Center at the hospital and for the endowed chair at the Medical School.
The aorta is the main artery that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body. An aortic aneurysm – a bulging out of a part of the aortic wall – can cause severe bleeding and death from a rupture or from a dissection, a tear in the inner lining of the aorta. Aneurysms are more common in patients with a family history of aortic illness, and Milewicz is trying to untangle the genetics of this and other vascular diseases.
“We want people to know that there is a genetic component that can be inherited in families. Hopefully that message is getting across,” said Milewicz, who is vice chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine and director of the Division of Medical Genetics at the Medical School. A faculty member in the UT Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston (GSBS), she is director of the M.D./Ph.D. program, which is a joint program of the two schools. She is chairman of the professional advisory board for the National Marfan Foundation.
Named a Doris Duke Distinguished Clinical Scientist in 2002, she recently was elected a fellow of the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Program. Established in 1995, the program offers approximately 45 recipients annually an opportunity to network with nationally recognized academic women leaders, hone administrative skills, and have greater visibility within and beyond the recipient’s institution.
Milewicz is in demand as a speaker on the topics of her research. She addressed about 500 major donors April 30 at the annual Chancellor’s Council meeting in Austin, hosted by Kenneth Shine, M.D., executive vice chancellor for health affairs for the UT System.
“My research program is really focusing primarily on vascular diseases to understand the genetic basis of aortic aneurysms and dissections,” Milewicz continued. “We work closely with Dr. Hazim Safi [professor and chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery] and the cardiovascular surgeons, along with the neurosurgeons, to enroll patients in our studies. In addition, we’ve expanded our efforts to work with Dr. James Grotta [holder of the Roy M. and Phyllis Gough Huffington Distinguished Chair] on stroke patients.”
Milewicz said her team is collecting DNA and serum samples from most of the vascular disease patients. These DNA banking studies are being funded by the National Institutes of Health and TexGen, a genetics research collaborative of the UT Health Science Center at Houston, Baylor College of Medicine and the UT M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Milewicz’s team continues to work with Frank Arnett, M.D., holder of the Elizabeth Bidgood Chair in Rheumatology at the Medical School, and Filemon Tan, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of internal medicinerheumatology at the Medical School and GSBS, on scleroderma, an autoimmune disease that causes thickening and hardening of the skin and internal organs. In addition, she directs the university’s Clinical Research Center DNA sequencing and Genotyping Core Laboratory.
“We continue to provide the infrastructure for the clinicians doing genetically oriented research on their patient populations,” she said.
Milewicz is the fifth current faculty member from the UT Health Science Center selected for ELAM. Others from the Medical School were Katherine Loveland, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and assistant dean for faculty affairs; Patricia Butler, M.D., professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and associate dean for educational programs; Margaret Uthman, M.D., professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and assistant dean for educational programs. From the Dental Branch Paula O’Neill, Ed.D., professor of dental public health and dental hygiene and special assistant to the dean, was an ELAM participant.
— By Colleen O’Brien, Medical School