Welcome to the Fall/Winter 2010 issue of The Informed Investigator.

Summa Health System, along with Akron Children’s Hospital, Akron General Medical Center, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy (NEOUCOM), and The University of Akron, is a founding member of the Austen BioInnovation Institute in Akron (ABIA), which is focused on patient-centered innovation and commercialization at the intersection of biomaterials and medicine. ABIA was established to expand the city’s legacy in biomaterials science and to pioneer the next generation of life-enhancing and life-saving biomedical innovation. It is dedicated to becoming a global leader in biomaterial and medical research, education, clinical services and commercialization, and a driver of transformative economic, social and health benefits for the Greater Akron area.
In order to reach its goals, the Institute operates through four Centers of Innovation tasked with rapidly taking ideas from proof-of-concept demonstration to standard of medical care.

My desire to pursue a career in the medical field developed in college after suffering a cervical spine injury that ended my collegiate wrestling career at Kent State. It was eventually a new technique being researched, that was successful in providing an appropriate countermeasure to alleviate my symptoms, and it was at this moment I learned the value of research. During my undergraduate studies at the University of Akron I had the opportunity to explore the immunologic responses to spinal cord injury. As a result of this work I came across a Summer Research Fellowship opportunity in the Department of Surgical Education and Research (DSER) at the Summa Health System. To my surprise one of the options was for a student to support a study looking at the innate immune response in elderly trauma patients. I was fortunate to be accepted for the position which is very, very competitive. Going into the summer fellowship program I did not know what to expect. I figured I would have a small role in the study; little did I know how involved I would become. In the end, my participation in this program was a life changing experience for me. I would like to share with you this experience.

Michael Askew, PhD, was honored at the 63rd annual Akron Council of Engineering and Scientific Societies (ACESS) on November 4th as the Distinguished Award Council recipient. This is a lifetime achievement award recognizing significant impact on the ACESS, local science and engineering communities.

Heather Holmes, MLIS completed a BioMedical Informatics fellowship at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, MA. The fellowship is designed to cover biomedical informatics from a wide range of areas including database design, disaster informatics, human-computer interface, genetics & genomics, Meaningful Use & electronic health records (EHR), clinical research informatics, telemedicine and Web 2.0 & social networking. Faculty for the courses were from NIH, Vanderbilt, University of Pittsburgh, Harvard, Columbia and the National Library of Medicine (NLM). The fellowship accepts 30 participants each year from hundreds of applicants and is entirely funded by the NLM, and co-sponsored by the MBL.