USF Health Research Day 2018 is set for Friday, Feb. 23, in the Marshall Student Center Ballroom. The annual event focuses on the high-impact scholarly work of students, residents, fellows and postdoctoral students across USF Health as well as health-related collaborations with other USF colleges.
This year’s USF Health Research Day will feature a record number of poster presentations.
Featured speaker Francis McCormack, MD, professor of medicine and division director of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at the University of Cincinnati, will kick off the day’s activities at 8:15 a.m. with the Annual Roy H. Behnke, MD, Distinguished Lectureship titled “Silencing LAM: Science, Synergy and Serendipity.”
Dr. McCormack’s National Institutes of Health-funded research includes investigating the molecular and genetic mechanisms leading to lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM), pulmonary alveolar microlithiasis (PAM) and other rare lung diseases and applying that knowledge toward discovering new biomarkers and treatments. The PAM mouse model developed by his University of Cincinnati team is yielding surprising new insights into the fundamental biology of the lung.
Francis McCormack, MD
He recently helped lead the development of new clinical practice guidelines for the diagnosis and care of LAM. “Our hope is that these additional recommendations regarding diagnostic approach and pleural disease management can help protect patients from inappropriate drug exposures, unnecessary surgical procedures and recurrent pneumothoraces,” Dr. McCormack said in an American Thoracic Society news release in November 2017.
Poster judging will begin at 10 a.m., with a record number of 391 posters exhibited. The 9th Annual Joseph Krzanowksi Invited Oral Presentations at Noon will feature the research of 12 students representing medicine, nursing, public health and pharmacy.
For more information on Research Day, including how to volunteer to be a judge, please visit http://health.usf.edu/research/upcoming-research-days
