UCNI Weekly Blog

Guest lecturer Dennis Choi, MD, PhD, right, with Fredy J. Revilla, MD, Director of the Gardner Center at UCNI. Dr. Choi was Dr. Revilla's mentor and department chairman at Washington University in St. Louis about a decade ago. Photo by Cindy Starr / Mayfield Clinic.

The esteemed neuroscientist Dennis Choi, MD, PhD, special guest lecturer at the University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Medicine, on Thursday issued a warning about funding for neuroscience drug research and expressed his hope for a new model of collaboration involving the National Institutes of Health, academic health centers like UC, and the pharmaceutical industry. He called for “increased bandwidth” in the number of ideas that can be converted into active research, and he said that foundations can play a more proactive role in disease philanthropy.

Photo of Lori Shutter, MD, by Dan Davenport / UC Academic Health Center Communications Services.

Look around Dr. Lori Shutter’s office on the UC Academic Health Center campus, and you won’t see any Bengal stripes. There are no NFL souvenirs or autographed posters on the walls. As an independent consultant to the Cincinnati Bengals, Dr. Shutter can’t afford to get swept up in the Who Dey spirit, even as the Bengals approach the playoffs this Saturday. “My priority is putting the players first, not the team,” Dr. Shutter says. “We want to take care of them. I can’t allow any bias to creep in.”

Maureen Gartner, RN, M.Ed., takes a break at the Gardner Center offices on the UC Academic Health Center campus. Photo by Cindy Starr / Mayfield Clinic.

Maureen Gartner, RN, M.Ed, likes to joke about the number of different hats she wears. Someday, she says, she is going to get a box of them and set them by her desk at the James J. and Joan A. Gardner Family Center for Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders at the UC Neuroscience Institute.

Heather Turner, Executive Director of NAMI Hamilton County, and Stephen M. Strakowski, MD, Senior Associate Dean for Research at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Photo by Cindy Starr / Mayfield Clinic.

Shake it off … Everybody goes through bad patches ... Chin up … It’s all in your head!

Sound familiar? Stephen M. Strakowski, MD, a leading psychiatrist and researcher, knows that for those who struggle with mental illness, dark thoughts and cloudy moods really are all in their head. But – and here’s the catch – they’re biologically based and not a sign of moral failing or personal weakness. “The brain,” he said Wednesday, “is vulnerable to going awry.”