TAMPA, Fla., (February 26, 2007) - The University of South Florida core for cardiovascular research at USF Health has been selected through a statewide competitive process, to receive $812,000 from the Walter L. and Phyllis W. Mason Trust, administered by Regions Morgan Keegan Trust, formerly AmSouth Trust. USF Health will seek matching funds from the state to raise a total of $1.6 million. The funding will be used to purchase specialized scientific equipment and technology for researchers at USF Health studying heart disease.

“This is a fabulous vote of confidence and support in our new strategic direction at USF Health,” said Stephen K. Klasko, MD, MBA, vice president for USF Health and dean of the USF College of Medicine. “Essentially, the research core is a grouping of critical equipment that is shared by scientists, for use in multiple research projects. USF Health will also hold a Walter and Phyllis Mason Research Day which will be open to the public. The Masons wanted to be part of the cutting edge of health care and education, and this grant does exactly that.”

The Mason Trust Fund designated for cardiovascular research honors the late Walter L. and Phyllis W. Mason, long time Tampa Bay area residents and long time clients of AmSouth, now Regions Morgan Keegan Trust. The Masons directed that after their death, their Trustee was to identify a qualified cardiovascular research program as beneficiary of the Walter L. and Phyllis W. Mason Trust. The University of South Florida core for cardiovascular research at USF Health was one of three finalists selected to make a presentation to vie for the funds.

“Our selection of USF Health is an appropriate legacy for our client, Mr. Mason, who suffered from heart disease and was purposeful in his intention to provide this gift to enable ongoing cardiovascular research,” said Mark Middlebrook, Regions Morgan Keegan Trust Company Florida manager. “We believe that he would be very pleased to be helping others lead healthier lives through the support of this life-changing research at USF Health.”

Cardiovascular disease claims nearly one million American lives annually. While experts have found a link between heart disease and defective genes in heart tissue, scientists at USF are zeroing in on the specific genes that may be involved and the proteins that are produced. Their findings could result in new drugs specifically targeting those genes and proteins.

Cardiovascular research is among the USF College of Medicine’s four newly created, signature research programs, which also include Allergy Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Cancer Biology and Neuroscience. With $40.6 million in total National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for fiscal year 2005, the college is ranked 74th among the 123 listed U.S. medical schools, and ranks among the nation’s top 10 in Pediatrics and Neurosurgery research by the NIH.

About USF Health
USF Health has at its core the colleges of Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health and the schools of Basic Biomedical Sciences and Physical Therapy. USF is one of only 95 public and private universities in the U.S. that have been designated as a Carnegie Comprehensive Doctoral Research University/Very High Research Activity.

About Regions
Regions Financial Corporation is a member of the S&P 100 Index and Forbes Magazine's "Platinum 400" list of America's best big companies. With more than $143 billion in assets, Regions is one of the nation’s largest full-service providers of consumer and commercial banking, trust, securities brokerage, mortgage and insurance products and services. Regions serves customers in 16 states across the South, Midwest and Texas, and through its subsidiary, Regions Bank, operates some 2,000 AmSouth and Regions banking offices and more than 2,400 ATMs. Its investment and securities brokerage, trust and asset management division, Morgan Keegan & Company Inc., provides services from over 300 offices. Additional information about Regions and its full line of products and services can be found at www.regions.com.

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Tampa, FL (Feb. 28, 2007) -- Ellen Daley, PhD, MPH, an assistant professor in the USF College of Public Health, has been selected to receive the national Association of Teachers of Maternal and Child Health’s (ATMCH) 2007 Loretta P. Lacey Award for academic leadership. The award will be presented to her March 4 at the ATMCH annual meeting in Washington, DC.

Dr. Daley’s research on the psychosocial aspects of HPV, or human papilloma virus, has been federally funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute. Her studies include a five-year, $1.9 million NIH grant focusing on cognitive and emotional responses to HPV infection in men.

Dr. Daley earned her master’s degree in public health at the University of Michigan with a concentration in population planning. She then pursued work focusing on adolescent and women’s health, sexuality education, HPV/Cervical Cancer prevention and treatment, contraceptive use, and risk taking behaviors, developing and directing innovative programs for women. She earned her PhD in Public Health at USF in 2000.

Dr. Daley quickly became recognized as one of the most outstanding teachers in the Department of Community and Family Health. Her collaborative teaching with nursing and medical faculty has impacted multidisciplinary teaching strategies for students in various disciplines. With funding from the Area Health Education Centers, she developed an innovative interdisciplinary initiative in teaching women’s health, enabling students to learn how to work as a team in serving marginalized women and examining their health risk factors.

Dr. Daley established an Interdisciplinary Graduate Certificate in Women’s Health, which, using the Issues in Women's Health course as a cornerstone, integrates four colleges and nine departments within USF.

The ATMCH offers an interdisciplinary forum through which maternal and child health faculty from schools of public health and other institutions of higher learning share the knowledge, ideas, and skills essential to educating students, advancing MCH research, and applying research results to MCH policies, programs, and services. The association’s Loretta P. Lacey award was created to recognize leadership in MCH education, research, policy development and/or advocacy.

- USF Health -

USF Health is a partnership of the University of South Florida’s colleges of medicine, nursing, and public health; the schools of basic biomedical sciences and physical therapy & rehabilitation sciences; and the USF Physicians Group. It is a partnership dedicated to the promise of creating a new model of health and health care. One of the nation's top 63 public research universities as designated by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, USF received more than $310 million in research contracts and grants last year. It is ranked by the National Science Foundation as one of the nation's fastest growing universities for federal research and development expenditures.

Tampa, FL (Feb. 22, 2007) -- The Birth Defects Surveillance Program (BDSP) in the USF Health Department of Pediatrics received the National Birth Defects Prevention Network 2006 Award for Birth Defects Education and Prevention. The program staff received the award Feb. 6, 2007 at the Network’s annual meeting in San Antonio, TX.

The program was honored for its outstanding activities to promote public awareness of birth defects through innovative and collaborative education and prevention initiatives. In March 2004, the surveillance program received a $50,000 grant from the Florida Chapter of the March of Dimes to develop a series of fact sheets for nine different birth defects and one on pregnancy loss.

The fact sheets were developed in both English and Spanish for individuals with low literacy levels and distributed nationwide by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in its January 2007 Birth Defects Prevention Month packet. The fact sheets will be available on the Florida Department of Health’s Birth Defects Registry website later this spring.

The BDSP provides professional education about birth defects and folic acid, participates in epidemiological studies related to birth defects as directed by the Department of Health, and operates active surveillance of selected birth defects in nine Florida counties -- Escambia, Bay, Leon, Duval, Alachua, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Broward, and Miami-Dade. The USF program, funded by the Florida Department of Health through a cooperative agreement with the CDC, is directed by Kim Hauser, MBA, Associate in Pediatrics.

Athletic Training Major Joins School of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Sciences at USF College of Medicine

Tampa, FL (November 7, 2006) – In a bold move to further strengthen its initiative in sports medicine, the University of South Florida is transferring its Athletic Training Education Program to the College of Medicine’s School of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Sciences. The move to the College of Medicine, although rare in academic circles, is part of USF Health’s new comprehensive sports medicine initiative, which includes the new state funded SMART institute, orthopedic surgery, physical therapy, athletic training and sports safety outreach & research.
“Athletic training education has gone through significant growth and change in the past several years. Certified Athletic Trainers are allied health care professionals educated and trained in the prevention, assessment, treatment and rehabilitation of sports and physical activity-related injuries. We are pleased about the opportunity to integrate this undergraduate program into our School and the USF Health environment,” said William Quillen, Ph.D., Associate Dean, College of Medicine, and Director of the School of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Sciences.
The B.S. degree program in Athletic Training will officially join the School of Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Sciences effective May 2007, pending final notification to the University Board of Trustees. The current senior class in the Athletic Training major will graduate with a degree from the College of Education, the current home of the major. “The School of Physical Education, Wellness, and Sports Studies in the College of Education is proud of establishing the Athletic Training program and bringing it to the level of national accreditation”, said Steve Sanders, Ed.D., Director of the School of Physical Education, Wellness and Sports Studies.
The move of Athletic Training to the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences follows the School’s implementation of the Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) degree program in August 2005 and its plans to launch an interdisciplinary PhD degree program in Rehabilitation Sciences within the next five years.
Earlier this year, the Florida Legislature appropriated nearly $3 million to USF for the creation of a statewide Sports Medicine & Athletic Related Trauma (SMART) Institute. The interdisciplinary center promotes the health and safety of athletes through education, research and clinical care. Since July 2005, USF SMART faculty have trained more than 350 coaches and other school personnel across Hillsborough County. Three high-profile orthopedic surgeons also joined USF Health: Robert Pedowitz, MD, chief of sports medicine at the University of California-San Diego; David Leffers, MD, team physician for USF Bulls; and Charles Nofsinger, MD, a leading biomechanics expert in sports medicine who came to USF from Tulane Institute of Sports medicine in New Orleans, and now also a team physician for the Bulls.

Pam and Les Muma give gift worth $14 million to USF-TGH partnership

Tampa, FL (December 6, 2006) – Pam and Les Muma have given one of the largest gifts in Florida to support research and care for newborns. The gift supports a partnership between Tampa General Hospital and the University of South Florida to build research and medical teams, laboratories at USF and expand the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at TGH.

The Muma’s gift of $6 million to USF Health is eligible for a state match of $5 million. In addition, USF will invest an internal match of $3 million as well as salaries and physician support to advance research in neonatal intensive care. As a result, the total impact of the gift to benefit the USF Health -TGH partnership will exceed $14 million.

Because of this gift, USF Health and TGH can launch a major initiative to apply research to transform newborn intensive care, said Steven Klasko, MD, MBA, Vice President for USF Health and Dean of the USF College of Medicine.

“This is the type of leadership gift that not only allows USF and TGH to perform research that will transform neonatal care, but also fundamentally changes the community such that patients from around the country will look to Tampa as the place to care for the sickest moms and babies.”

As part of the initiative, TGH will expand and redesign its Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and rename it the Jennifer Leigh Muma Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, in memory of Pam and Les’s daughter who died in a neonatal nursery.

In addition, state-of-the-art core research laboratories at USF Health will be named for Lisa Muma Weitz, their daughter who lives in Charleston, South Carolina.

“We’re doing this for two reasons,” Pam said. “First, we want to help any family who experiences a situation similar to ours with a newborn in critical need for special care. And second, we believe research can help create and identify the best treatments for those smallest, sickest children.”

At USF, the gift will create the Pamela and Leslie Muma Endowed Chair in Neonatal Research, and also allow USF to construct laboratories for that research team, led by the endowed chairholder.

“Parents of newborns should know they have no greater friends than Pam and Les Muma,” said Ron Hytoff, TGH president. “With their gift, we’ll develop the next generation of care for the very sickest newborns and give their parents new hope.”

Les Muma was Co-founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Fiserv, Inc., in Brookville, Wisconsin, a Fortune 500 company providing technology products and services to over 17,000 financial institution clients worldwide.

Upon retirement in 2005, Les and Pam returned to Florida, where they were raised and went to college. Both were educated at Winter Haven High School and USF, and Les received an honorary doctorate from the USF College of Business.

Pam Muma was active in the Milwaukee community, including serving as Chairman of the Board of Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin Foundation, the Cancer Center of the Medical College of Wisconsin, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, United Way, Milwaukee Art Museum, Task Force on Family Violence, and others. She has brought the same commitment to the Tampa Bay Community, serving on the TGH Foundation Board, the Moffitt Cancer Center Foundation Board of Directors, as a founding member of the USF Women in Leadership in Philanthropy, and Junior Achievement of West Central Florida. Les serves on the USF Foundation Board and was appointed last year as Executive-in-Residence in the USF College of Business and has been an active supporter of USF Athletics.