Tavistock Archives - Sanford Burnham Prebys

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Institute News

On the map: doing business in Medical City

AuthorKyle Ziegler
Date

April 13, 2017

Lake Nona aerial view

More than a hundred central Florida business leaders gathered in Lake Nona’s Medical City to learn about the latest life sciences and health innovations during Orlando Business Journal’s “Doing Business in Medical City” event on April 13, 2017. Leaders from anchor institutions Guidewell Innovation Center, Nemours Children’s Hospital, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) and Tavistock touted numerous examples of collaborations and tech innovations all unique to the area’s health ecosystem.

Panelists highlighted several important collaborative projects taking shape inside of Medical City research labs. “The way we approach basic science and biomedical discovery is through interaction,” said Layton Smith, PhD, director of drug discovery and pharmacology at SBP. “We need to be—and are—interacting with partners like the University of Central Florida, the University of Florida and more. So essentially, what we’ve built here is a node in a network of biomedical research.” One of the recent collaborations he described involves a project with UCF researchers on Zika. Also discussed was an ongoing partnership with the Mayo Clinic and the Michael J. Fox Foundation on personalized medicine approaches for Parkinson’s disease.

Panelists also emphasized the role of people partnerships in broadening community health and wellness initiatives in the area.

Jim Zboril, president of Tavistock Development Co. LLC, described collaboration as a hallmark of Lake Nona and highlighted the built environment as a foundation for residents to live, work, and play. The Lake Nona Life Project, for example, allows “citizen scientists” who live and work in Lake Nona to take part in research studies happening in their backyard. He also provided a glimpse of the latest projects taking place inside of Lake Nona Town Center, which will include a new fitness center and cable water park, as well as new developments in the adjacent Lake Nona Sports and Performance District, which is home to the USTA’s National Campus and Orlando City Soccer’s training facility.

Additionally, new tech innovations are fast-tracking a “wellness without walls” approach to healthcare delivery. Renee Finley, president of GuideWell Innovation, described how new wearable sensor technology displayed in Lake Nona’s intelligent home WHIT (Wellness, Health, Innovation, and Technology), can track activities of daily living, including how many times the refrigerator is opened in a day and movements in the home. ‘Those things can be indicators of other health conditions,” she said.

Meanwhile, Nemours’ telehealth services are making the demand for access to healthcare easier by providing a gateway for the consumer to get in touch with a specialist. “We have an app where you can access any one of our pediatric providers for urgent consultation any time of the day or night—24/7,” said Andre Hebra, MD, chief medical officer of Nemours Children’s Hospital. “And beyond that, we have telehealth services to provide specialty consultations to some of our partnership hospitals.”

Institute News

How energy starvation leads to heart failure

Authorjmoore
Date

February 25, 2016

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Almost 6 million people in the US have failing hearts, which can arise following heart attacks, longstanding high blood pressure, defective heart valves or genetic disorders, among other causes. While management of heart failure (HF) is improving, only 50% of patients will survive five years after diagnosis. No current treatments directly treat the disease, particularly at early stages, so development of new preventive or therapeutic drugs could make an enormous difference for patients.  Continue reading “How energy starvation leads to heart failure”

Institute News

Leading cardiometabolic researcher to join SBP

Authordrobison
Date

November 5, 2015

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The cardiovascular researcher who pioneered visualizing the function of the human heart using the most powerful magnetic resonance available will soon join SBP’s Florida campus. E. Douglas Lewandowski, PhD, will become professor in the Cardiovascular Metabolism Program and director of Cardiovascular Translational Research starting December 2015. He is among the most preeminent investigators in the world who specialize in the metabolic basis of heart failure, including ischemic heart disease and diabetic cardiomyopathy.

“Doug Lewandowski’s pioneering work has unveiled new concepts and therapeutic strategies aimed at improving the treatment of heart failure, a worldwide health problem. He will continue this work at SBP, leading an innovative bench-to-clinic research program at SBP and the Florida Hospital Translational Research Institute for Metabolism and Diabetes (TRI-MD). His recruitment is transformational for our translational research efforts in the cardiovascular arena,” said Daniel P. Kelly, MD, Tavistock Distinguished Professor and scientific director, Center for Metabolic Origins of Disease at SBP Lake Nona.

Lewandowski’s contributions to understanding metabolic pathways and fuels that may protect against the high-morbidity, -mortality, and economic health burden of heart failure are recognized as among the most rigorous and field-advancing. He is renowned in the use of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to visualize and measure metabolic activity in the intact beating heart in health and disease. His expertise in medical imaging techniques involves manipulation of metabolic activity in the ailing heart with pharmacological agents and targeted gene manipulation.

He will hold a joint appointment at Florida Hospital as senior principal investigator at the TRI-MD. He views the partnership between SBP’s basic research and the TRI’s clinical investigations as an attractive and effective research model that will accelerate the translation of the fundamental mechanisms of heart disease and therapeutic targets toward patient-based studies to identify new treatments, therapeutics, and cures.

“With Lake Nona’s emphasis and existing expertise in cardiometabolic disease, I feel that I can immediately contribute to team science approaches to elucidate fundamental mechanisms of heart and metabolic disease. My focus will be to translate findings in SBP’s laboratories to human studies of the metabolic basis of heart disease at the TRI,” said Lewandowski. “It is this partnership that I anticipate will be a game changer in the way I will be able to implement the translation of my laboratory investigations, and I find this very, very exciting.”

Prior to joining SBP, Lewandowski held the position of professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, in the Department of Medicine, and director of the Program in Integrative Cardiac Metabolism at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Previously, Dr. Lewandowski spent a decade on the faculty at Harvard Medical School with hospital appointments at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Mass.

Institute News

New collaboration strives to find novel treatment approaches for cardiovascular disease

Authorpbartosch
Date

May 28, 2015

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Sanford-Burnham today announced it has signed a two-year partnership agreement with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd. of Japan to study the potential role of several gene regulatory proteins as targets for the treatment of heart failure. Based on research conducted in Sanford-Burnham laboratories, the collaborating scientists will screen and develop molecules that have the potential to improve the metabolism and function of the failing heart. Continue reading “New collaboration strives to find novel treatment approaches for cardiovascular disease”

Institute News

Happy Holidays from Sanford-Burnham!

Authorpbartosch
Date

December 23, 2014

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As the year draws to a close, we look back on Sanford-Burnham’s many achievements in 2014. Over the year, our scientists published numerous papers in high-profile journals; secured significant grant funding; partnered with companies, institutes, and nonprofit organizations from across the country and the globe; and they took important steps toward our ultimate goal – to have a tangible impact on human health. Here are 14 accomplishments of 2014 that we are proud to share with you: Continue reading “Happy Holidays from Sanford-Burnham!”

Institute News

Sanford-Burnham welcomes five new Trustees

Authorrbruni
Date

September 18, 2014

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We’re excited to announce the election of five new members to our Board of Trustees. The Board will grow to 21 members with the addition of the new trustees.

“I am extremely pleased to welcome these distinguished industry leaders to the Sanford-Burnham Board at this pivotal time,” said Gregory Lucier, chairman of our Board. “I am confident that their collective knowledge and business expertise will benefit the Institute as we implement our strategic vision to accelerate the translation of basic research discoveries into innovative therapeutics that improve human health.” Continue reading “Sanford-Burnham welcomes five new Trustees”