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Tyson Wins National Research and Teaching Awards
In addition to his own research on low birth-weight infants, professor leads training
for new clinical researchers
Jon E. Tyson, M.D.
A successful clinician, educator and researcher, Jon E. Tyson, M.D., holder of the Michelle Bain Distinguished Professorship in Medicine and Public Health at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, was cited twice this spring with national awards for his teaching and research excellence.
In the span of a few weeks he traveled across the country – to Chicago and to San Francisco – to accept the two prestigious awards. He received:
- the 2004 Distinguished Educator Award from the Association for Clinical Research Training Program Directors April 16 and the 2004 Douglas K. Richardson Award for Perinatal and Pediatric Healthcare Research from the Society for Pediatric Research May 3.
“Being a clinician who does research has many advantages,” Tyson said. “One can recognize the therapies that are most effective for patients and be in the best position to recognize clinical features of disease or the responses to treatment that will suggest ways to improve outcomes. You’re also in a better position to conduct studies to test new applications from the lab to the bedside because you can conduct the studies effectively and ensure the enthusiasm of the staff to a level that’s necessary to have a productive test.”
Nurturing Clinical Research
As director of the Center for Clinical Research and Evidence-Based Medicine at the UT Medical School at Houston since its inception in 1998, Tyson is committed to nurturing the clinical research careers of junior faculty. In fact, mentoring faculty members and students is part of the center’s mission.The center’s Clinical Research Curriculum is funded by a five-year National Institutes of Health grant as a core training program to promote clinical research expertise among clinical investigators at the fellow and junior faculty level.
Tyson, who holds faculty appointments in both the Medical School and the UT School of Public Health at Houston, has mentored six faculty members, several fellows, two master of public health students and four doctoral students. Some of the mentees have gone on to receive career development awards.
“The award from the Association for Clinical Research Training Program Directors particularly reflects the work of a number of people who are members of the center and who helped grow the center, including Drs. Ginny Moyer, Kathleen Kennedy, Robert Lasky, Donald Molony, Jack Sinclair, Chul Ahn, Trey Miller, Jan Groff and Carl Phillips at the School of Public Health,” he said.
The center now involves 21 faculty members from the Medical School and School of Public Health in a variety of disciplines needed to advance medical outcomes and public health. Kathleen Kennedy, M.D., professor of pediatrics-neonatology, Tyson and these faculty members are responsible for the Master’s Degree Program in Clinical Research, in which 30 fellows and faculty are enrolled.
The Distinguished Educator Award is bestowed annually by the Association for Clinical Research Training Program Directors, which represents the 59 institutions that are recipients of National Institutes of Health K30 clinical research curriculum grants and whose mission is to foster the development of clinical investigators in the United States. Criteria for the award include a distinguished career as a clinical investigator, documented national leadership in clinical research education and outstanding success as a mentor.
Health of High-Risk Infants
The Richardson award from the Society for Pediatric Research honors the lifetime achievement of an investigator who has made substantive contributions to improving health-care delivery to the neonatal/pediatric populations. It is named in honor of the late Dr. Douglas K. Richardson’s dedication to pediatric research.Tyson has committed his research to improving the health of high-risk infants. “I started out in this field because I was convinced that if we gave high-risk mothers and babies the care that they needed that we would not only reduce the mortality rate, we would also reduce the likelihood of cerebral palsy and other neurodevelopmental impairments and increase the survival rates,” he said.
“To date we can say that neonatal intensive care and perinatal intensive care has increased survival rates and reduced impairments. However, we still have more work to do,” he added.
Tyson has specialized in neonatal research as the primary investigator of numerous research grants, including the Neonatal Research Network from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development since 1986.
“Dr. Kennedy and I direct the neonatal network while Dr. Susan Ramin and Dr. Larry Gilstrap [in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences] direct the maternal/fetal network,” Tyson explained. “Neonatal death and other adverse outcomes are uncommon enough that you need large studies in many centers to see if new therapies are effective and to ascertain true advances from apparent advances.
“I am fortunate to work at the UT Health Science Center, which is on the forefront of perinatal and neonatal research. The research staff and nurses, in addition to our great faculty, also deserve a lot of credit,” Tyson said.
“Both of these new awards reflect the fact that I am working with people who are more talented than I and who are highly committed to education and research,” he said.
— Darla Brown, Medical School