Opportunity in health care reporting

[Kara Andrade]

-------- Original Message --------

From:	Rebecca Rosen Lum <rros...@gmail.com>
Subject:	Opportunity in health care reporting
Date:	Wed, 8 Sep 2010 10:47:20 -0700 (PDT)
To:	Announcements from Freelance Media Workers <announcements-from-fr...@googlegroups.com>

The Association of Health Care Journalists offers a panel on the
impact of economic stimulus money on medical research at UCSF Tuesday,
Sept. 21. Free to journalists, journalism students, and AHCJ members.
The situation offers excellent health care reporting opportunities
that combine economics, politics, and medical science. If you have
never covered UCSF, this is your opportunity to learn how.
The University of California - San Francisco (UCSF) will be our host,
giving us an insider�s look into how staff researchers are using
federal stimulus funds for health and medical projects. Many of their
endeavors are untold stories that will spark ideas for your own
reporting, now or in the very near future.

Event details

Is federal stimulus spending creating the millions of new jobs
promised by President Obama? Are mechanisms against fraud and to
promote transparency in place? The debate over the massive Economic
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is becoming louder and brasher
18 months after its passage and two months before the mid-term
Congressional elections.

According to official government website (www.recovery.gov), $202
billion for 12,000 contracts, grants, and awards were issued as of
June 30. Of the total, $10 billion was directed to the National
Institutes of Health. It is spending the funds on thousands of medical
research projects and scientific infrastructure awarded to individual
scientists, one grant at a time.

The initiative has brought full-employment to scientists at the
University of California, San Francisco. As of July 31, its
researchers were awarded 280 ARRA-funded grants valued at $66.2
million. It laboratories are humming with researchers who are creating
the next generation of genetically inspired drugs and personalized
therapies.

The situation offers excellent health care reporting opportunities
that combine economics, politics, and medical science. If you have
never covered UCSF, this is your opportunity to learn how.
UCSF will showcase three ARRA-funded projects that exemplify the range
of groundbreaking research under way on its campuses. Principal
investigators for three multi-million dollar projects will describe
how their discoveries may save lives and stoke the economy.

The speakers
Kristen Bole, biotech news manager, UCSF Public Affairs, will provide
an overview of ARRA funding at UCSF and introduce you to the NIH
Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tool (RePORT), a web-based method
for identifying groundbreaking projects at UCSF and other medical
research institutions.
Neil Risch, PhD, director of the UCSF Institute for Human Genetics,
received a $25 million grant in partnership with Kaiser Permanente to
fund the research and creation of the largest genetic health care
database ever undertaken. Through this project, UCSF will conduct a
genome-wide analysis of DNA samples from 100,000 Kaiser Permanente
member volunteers, representing decades of historical clinical,
medication and health-related information on the largest and most
diverse genetic population ever studied. The project will support 22
staff and research positions at Kaiser and UCSF in the first year
alone, as well as providing key funding to nine current faculty and
physician researchers in the two institutions.

S. Claiborne Johnston, MD, PhD, physician and director of the UCSF
Stroke Service, received a $12.4 million cooperative agreement to
evaluate an acute intervention in patients with transient ischemic
attacks (TIA), which occur about 250,000 to 350,000 times each year in
the US. Johnston will lead a multicenter clinical trial to find
effective therapies to reduce the overall burden of stroke on patients
with TIA. These funds also will create four full-time research
positions at UCSF, six others at partnering institutions, and
positions for 25 full-time coordinators throughout the trial sites.
Geoffrey Manley, MD, PhD, a neurotrauma surgeon at San Francisco

General Hospital and co-director of the UCSF Brain and Spinal Injury
Center, received a $4.1 million Grand Opportunity award to fund a
potential framework for all future Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
research, TBI is one of the greatest unmet needs in public health and
is the signature injury of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Manley will
lead an effort to test and refine standards for data collection in TBI
studies, suitable for use across the broad spectrum of TBI, and use
emerging technology to explore novel approaches for TBI classification
and outcomes. These funds also are creating 14 full-time positions and
eight part-time jobs.

A question and answer session will follow the presentations.
Coming up next, date TBA: How to cover the public health response to
infectious diseases.

The Impact of economic stimulus money on medical research at UCSF
Tuesday, September 21
6 - 8 pm (panel will begin at 6:30)
UCSF Mission Bay Campus
Byers Hall Room 212
1700 Fourth Street (corner of 16th)
San Francisco
Enter via Genentech Hall (adjacent building) from the quad and check
in at the security desk. Street parking is available; paid parking is
in the lot/garage across the street.
Map: http://www.ucsf.edu/pdf/maps/ucsf_mission_bay.pdf
Directions: http://www.ucsf.edu/maps/directions-to-ucsf-mission-bay/

Light refreshments will be served. This event is FREE; all AHCJ
members, local health journalists, and journalism students are
welcome.

Please RSVP to Bay.Ar...@gmail.com.

The Association of Health Care Journalists is an independent,
nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing public understanding of
health care issues. Its mission is to improve the quality, accuracy
and visibility of health care reporting, writing and editing. There
are more than 1,000 members of AHCJ.