Table of Contents
Family Impact Spurs Research Interests
of Neurosurgeon Dong Kim
“Quite simply, we want to be the best!”
Dong Kim, M.D., the new chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, takes his genetic research on cerebral aneurysms personally. Brain hemorrhaging runs in his family.
Dong Kim, M.D.
Kim, who has been working for 10 years on aortic aneurysm research with Dianna Milewicz, M.D., Ph.D., professor and director of the Division of Genetics at the medical school, decided to turn to his field of expertise – brain aneurysms – to find the defective genes responsible for his family’s history of the condition. Milewicz also is a faculty member at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
A brain aneurysm is a bulge that forms on a weak area of an artery in the brain. The patient usually doesn’t experience symptoms until the bulge begins to hemorrhage or ruptures, leading to death 50 percent of the time. Survivors often have neurological problems.
“People are dying of ruptured aneurysms. I was working with Dr. Milewicz on her research and I thought that maybe I could find a genetic link for cerebral aneurysms,” Kim, 43, said. “In my own family, my parents suffer from brain hemorrhaging and an uncle, who was only in his 30s, died from it. Maybe subconsciously that’s why I went into the field.”
Kim, who was at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital for the past four years before returning here, will help lead the Mischer Neuroscience Institute at Memorial Hermann. From 1998 to 2003, he was a UT Medical School faculty member and founded a comprehensive center for cerebrovascular surgery at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center.
“I am very pleased to welcome Dr. Dong Kim, a distinguished neurosurgeon, back to our faculty. As chair of the Department of Neurosurgery, he will help lead us in the pursuit of clinical excellence and strengthen our educational program as we seek a residency program in this important specialty,” said Giuseppe Colasurdo, M.D., dean of the UT Medical School.
Before he even arrived at UT Medical School, Kim worked behind the scenes to prepare for the tasks ahead. By the time he officially started as chairman on Oct. 1, he had already moved into his office and had photos of his children decorating bookshelves and walls.
He was even prepared for a site visit by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), which was set to take place only five days after he arrived at the university.
“This speaks to his energy and commitment to propelling us to another level of excellence,” said James Grotta, M.D., chairman of the Department of Neurology at the UT Medical School who will codirect, with Kim, the Mischer Neuroscience Institute. “He wanted to hit the ground running, and he’s running.”
“The Mischer Neuroscience Institute already provides more high-quality care in the neuroscience area than anyone else in our region,” said Juanita Romans, CEO of Memorial Hermann- Texas Medical Center. “Attracting a neurosurgeon of Dr. Kim’s caliber to develop the Mischer Neuroscience Institute alongside Dr. Grotta will solidify the Institute’s standing as among the finest in the world.”
Kim already has begun collecting blood samples from Grotta’s patients, among others, at the UT Neurology Clinic.
In his research at Harvard, underwritten by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Kim has found 80 families with a genetic predisposition for brain aneurysms. He likens the search for the defective gene to trying to find a single person on the planet Earth.
“You find out they’re in Europe and then you narrow it down to Paris and then to the district and then to the street. We know the street. Now we’re looking for the address,” he said.
Recently, he also was awarded a grant from the Bugher Foundation, and the American Heart Association, a portion of which comes with him to the UT Medical School. The discovery of a defective gene linked to cerebral aneurysms would be a first.
Kim’s research indicates that 20 percent of cerebral aneurysms have a familial link. If a gene can be found, family members of a patient with a cerebral aneurysm can be tested to see if they carry a genetic predisposition for the disease. Doctors can then monitor them closely by scanning for aneurysms and performing surgery before an aneurysm ruptures.
In a story written for the Winter 2007 BWH Magazine, one of Kim’s patients said she suffered a ruptured aneurysm at age 25. When she began having vision problems 15 years later, she was referred to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where Kim repaired two aneurysms. She encouraged the rest of her family to undergo imaging and no aneurysms were detected. Being able to undergo genetic testing would determine which family members should continue to have regular magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.
Kim’s other research includes “personalized medicine,” which could do things such as screen people genetically for drug allergies before they’ve been given a medication.
He also will be looking at stem cell research in collaboration with researchers at UT’s Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine for the Prevention of Human Diseases (IMM).
Neuroimaging research will include the medical school’s 3 Tessla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, which can detect small aneurysms before standard MRI.
Kim is working to bring first-class technology to the university and institute, such as a new laser developed in the Netherlands, a next-generation gamma knife and robotics.
The laser, used in an arterial bypass around a brain aneurysm, allows the surgeon to avoid clamping the artery, which is necessary in conventional surgery but carries the risk of causing a stroke. It has not yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration but was successfully used in an emergency application at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan last December.
Kim is in the process of recruiting three neurosurgeons and will be working toward adding a neurosurgical residency, which will be directed by Dennis Vollmer, M.D., professor of neurosurgery.
“We already have an incredible amount of talent here. We want to continue that by recruiting the best possible faculty while adding cutting edge technology,” Kim said. “We are the only department that doesn’t have a residency. Having a residency in every field increases an institution’s prestige, so that’s very important to us. Quite simply, we want to be the best.”
By Deborah Mann Lake, Institutional Advancement