Exciting Time for Medicine at USC

Sharing a new vision for the future of medicine at USC, a distinguished panel of faculty experts from the Keck School of Medicine spoke at a November event sponsored by The Doctors of USC at the Regent Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills.

“This is a very exciting time for the medical school and USC as we work to create a new USC academic medical center and expand our clinical enterprise,” said Carmen A. Puliafito, M.D., M.B.A., dean of the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “There is a reason why we are here in Beverly Hills. It has become very clear that reaching out into the community both west toward Beverly Hills and east toward Pasadena is an important part of our strategy going forward.”
More than 125 friends of the Keck School of Medicine were eager to hear the panel of speakers – five USC faculty who made presentations about innovative advances in their areas of expertise. Following are highlights of the program.

Cardiovascular Surgery Vaughn A. Starnes, M.D., Hastings Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Surgery, discussed innovative strategies in cardiovascular disease. For example, he said, “The conventional approach to treating mitral valve disease even five or six years ago was to open the sternum, and, quite frankly, most medical centers you encounter still do it this way. We looked at another way to do it, called the minimally invasive approach, where we repair and replace valves through a tiny incision.”

Starnes is founding executive director of the USC Cardiovascular Thoracic Institute, which brings together specialists from cardiology, vascular surgery and cardiac surgery for integrated patient care. “No other academic medical center west
of the Mississippi has an established integrated care model for treating cardiovascular and pulmonary
diseases,” he said.

Colorectal Cancer Heinz-Josef Lenz, M.D., associate director of the USC Norris Gastrointestinal Oncology Program and co-director of the Colorectal Center, spoke on the development of customized therapies for individual patients. One of his patients is a 46-year-old woman who was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer and told she had six months to live.
“She came to us, we analyzed her tumor, then modified and individualized her treatment,” said Lenz. “She is now disease-free. This is how colon cancer will look in the future.”

Ophthalmology Mark S. Humayun, M.D., Ph.D., professor of ophthalmology, cell and neurobiology, and biomedical engineering, discussed the development of an artificial retina. In collaboration with scientists at Second Sight Medical Products Inc., Humayun and his team have developed an electrode-studded sliver of silicone and platinum that is implanted on the retina. A camera mounted to a pair of glasses picks up information and sends it to the implanted device. It then stimulates the remaining nerve cells and sends this information to the brain.
“The goal of our project is to restore sight,” Humayun said, “first to enable mobility, but then also to enable reading, recognizing faces, or maybe even color vision in the future.”

Childhood Obesity Francine R. Kaufman, M.D., Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine and professor of communications at the Annenberg School of Communications, spoke about preventing childhood obesity. According to Kaufman, several factors, including school environment, are contributing to the epidemic of childhood obesity.
“Our children are glued to TV sets and video games,” said Kaufman, who also is director of the Comprehensive Childhood Diabetes Center at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. “They are not active like they used to be.”

Stem Cells Martin Pera, Ph.D., professor and founding director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for
Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC, discussed stem cells and the future of medicine.
“Stem cell research is going to revolutionize medicine,” said Pera. “Stem cells give us powerful new tools to study human biology in health and disease and human gene function.”