Research Day: New Pathways to Discovery

Organizers of the 2005 Research Day expect more than 150 University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston students and postdoctoral participants this year, according to Peter Davies, M.D., Ph.D., executive vice president for research. The 11th annual event will feature poster presentations by student and postdoctoral researchers, along with podium presentations from faculty members who are leading large interdisciplinary research programs.

Research Day will be 9:30 a.m.- 4 p.m., Friday, Nov. 18. The faculty podium presentations will begin at 9:30 a.m. in the 2nd floor auditorium of the Institute of Biosciences and Technology, 2121 Holcombe Blvd. Poster presentations will begin at 12:30 p.m. across the street at the Edwin Hornberger Conference Center in the Texas Medical Center, 2151 W. Holcombe, where lunch will be served. Students, faculty and staff are invited to attend.

“The new emphasis for Research Day grew out of the National Institutes of Health Roadmap Initiative, which identifies the most compelling opportunities for medical research in three main areas: new pathways to discovery, research teams of the future and re-engineering the clinical research enterprise,” Davies said.

Podium speakers will be:
Eric Boerwinkle, Ph.D., holder of the Kozmetsky Family Chair in Human Genetics, professor and director of the Division of Epidemiology at the UT School of Public Health at Houston, and faculty member at the UT Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Houston (GSBS) and the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases.

Jack Fletcher, Ph.D., professor of pediatrics at the UT Medical School at Houston and associate director of the Center for Academic and Reading Skills, speaking on “Spina Bifida: Genes, Brain and Behavior.”

John Byrne, Ph.D., holder of the June and Virgil Waggoner Chair, chairman of the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the Medical School, and GSBS faculty member, on “Multidisciplinary Approaches to Reveal the Secrets of Memory Mechanisms.”

George Stancel, Ph.D., the John P. McGovern Professor of Biomedical Sciences and GSBS dean, on “Pharmacoinformatics as a Prototype Multi-Institutional, Interdisciplinary Training Program.”

Research Day is coordinated by the health science center’s Office of Research. For questions contact Susan Fernandez, (713) 500-3471, or research@uth.tmc.edu.