E-News August 2, 2023

Anatomy Now 08.02.23

Anatomy Now - August 2, 2023

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LEADERSHIP CORNER

Message from the President: Self-care and Vacation – Ingredients for Success

It is August; for most of us in the North Hemisphere, it is summertime, and school is in recess. I just returned from the Association of Medical Illustrators (AMI) annual meeting in Las Vegas. It was hot outside (110F!) and hot inside with impressive anatomy visualization. Their current president, Jill Gregory, acknowledged AAA in her presidential address the first morning and promoted our meeting in Toronto. I met great anatomists, scientists, and budding illustrators, many of whom are interested in joining us in Toronto.

Maybe you thought that medical illustrators would only illustrate medicine, I did too, and I was wrong! Their work spans the front cover of scientific magazines like “Nature” and “Cell” and posters to promote tree planting in Maryland. We should think of them as scientific visual communicators, and I can tell you that we have so much in common. I am excited to cultivate this relationship and look forward to working with the new president Todd Buck and the whole organization.

As I write this, I’m about to embark on my vacation—a time to disconnect and indulge in self-care. I firmly believe that taking care of ourselves is essential to our overall well-being and success. This belief resonates with the people in my lab, where I constantly advocate for a healthy work-life balance, and everyone around me who knows it is part of my work ethic. My organic chemistry professor in pharmacy school once said, “When you work, you work. When you don’t work, you don’t work.” In our fast-paced, hyper-connected world, these words hold even greater significance.

Each of us defines self-care and vacation differently, but the essence remains the same: to rejuvenate our minds, bodies, and spirits. Whether spending quality time with loved ones, pursuing hobbies, or exploring new places, these moments of pause grant us fresh perspectives on our journey.

As for my vacation? I will be entirely unplugged from work (and AAA!)—no emails, no phone calls, and completely off the grid. I intend to immerse myself in the present moment and preferably explore new landscapes of the world with my camera in my hand.

To all of you, my message is simple—take care of yourselves and find moments of peace and tranquility. Embracing self-care and vacation will enhance your personal lives and allow you to return to work with renewed vigor and creativity. Let’s continue to support and uplift one another on this journey.

Wishing you all an excellent August filled with joy, relaxation, and self-discovery.

With warm regards,

AAA President

Martine Dunnwald, PharmD, Ph.D., FAAA

University of Iowa, IA, USA

AAA Ethics Committee Update

The Board of Directors approved the roster for the Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee reports to the Board of Directors and is responsible for assisting the Board in upholding AAA’s commitment to the highest ethical professional standards. Ethics Committee members will act with confidentiality, in good faith, and exercise honest judgment, free from conflicts of interest.

The Ethics Committee is composed of five members, including the Ethics Committee Chair (typically a past president or past board member) and four other members who represent AAA foundational and ethical values.

The approved Ethics Committee roster is listed below:

Maria A. Serrat, Ph.D., Chair, Marshall University, WV, USA
Thomas Champney, Ph.D., University of Miami, FL, USA
Darren Hoffmann, Ph.D., University of Iowa, IA, USA
Madeleine Norris, Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
Titus Reaves, Ph.D., Medical University of South Carolina, SC, USA

AAA and Others Respond to Supreme Court Decision on Affirmative Action

AAA joined 45 other organizations representing a wide range of scientific, engineering, and mathematical disciplines in responding to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling on race considerations in college and university admissions by reaffirming its commitment to expanding talent in STEMM from historically excluded communities.

“Despite this outcome, we are committed to seeking legally attentive strategies to ensure a full range of talent is recruited, retained, and advanced across STEMM fields. We will continue to advance initiatives that will enable all students to cultivate their talent to the highest potential and tackle societal challenges while serving their communities,” the societies wrote.

Read the full press release: “Multi-society Statement on U.S. Supreme Court Ruling on Students for Fair Admissions.”

Postdoctoral Fellowship Recipient

Congratulations to Dr. Alpen Ortuğ for being one of the Postdoctoral Fellowship Recipients!

Dr. Ortuğ is an accomplished researcher who obtained her Ph.D. in 2020 from Istanbul Medipol University, Graduate School of Health Sciences, Clinical Anatomy Program. She currently holds the postdoctoral research fellow position at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Ortuğ's works at the Takahashi Neuroimaging Lab investigates structural differences in neurodevelopmental disorders, such as Down syndrome and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). They employ an advanced in-house-developed, fully automatic serial sectioning polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography (as-PSOCT) system to accomplish this.

As a Ph.D. specializing in clinical anatomy, Dr. Ortuğ's research is focused on clinically relevant neuroimaging. Her contributions seek to address critical clinical research questions and identify potential neuroimaging biomarkers that could significantly impact medical practice and patient care.

AAA’s Outstanding Mentor Honoree Valerie Dean O’Loughlin, Ph.D., Pays It Forward

Not every AAA member has a Wikipedia page and a Goodreads page, but Valerie Dean O’Loughlin does.

But it’s her work off the pages and in the lives of her students that got AAA’s attention and has netted her latest award, AAA’s Outstanding Mentor Award for 2023.

At the Forefront of Anatomy Education

O’Loughlin, who has been a member of AAA since 2000, is a professor of anatomy, cell biology & physiology at Indiana University School of Medicine - Bloomington (IUSM-B). In addition to teaching undergraduate anatomy to pre-allied health students, and gross anatomy to medical students, she also teaches pedagogical methods in health sciences and mentors and PhD students pursuing anatomy education research. In fact, she’s also director of undergraduate medical education at IUSM-B.

In 1999, while O’Loughlin was an associate professor of anatomy, Indiana University started to develop a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Program and sought to get faculty members involved in discipline-based education research. Spurred on by her mentor and the head of that initiative, Samuel Thompson, O’Loughlin became involved in education research. “I was very new to education research and he (Samuel Thompson) helped me develop my first education research project which set my path or trajectory for my research,” she said.

Through the SoTL program, O’Loughlin also met Leah Savion, another mentor in education research. “It was because of that strong program – the mentorship, the encouragement in presenting work at these teaching and learning seminars – that I got involved in education research.”

Over her 28-year career, O’Loughlin has been a mentor to thousands of students and colleagues and won AAA’s Outstanding Mentor Award for 2023. O’Loughlin was nominated by her colleague and education innovator, Dee Silverthorn. Both women have previously been named AAA Fellows and are former presidents of the Human Anatomy and Physiology Society (HAPS). O’Loughlin also co-organized the AAA-sponsored Anatomy Education Research Institute (AERI) in 2017 and 2022 to train anatomy faculty to become anatomy researchers.

“With Dee Silverthorn, she’s a physiology legend. She’s written her own physiology text so when she said she wanted to nominate me for this award, I was truly honored. I view her as a mentor, so for her to say that she wanted to nominate me, I felt, was a really special honor,” O’Loughlin said.

The Outstanding Mentor Award is not O’Loughlin’s first AAA honor. In addition to being an AAA Fellow, she also won the Henry Gray Distinguished Educator Award in 2018 and the Basmajian Award in 2007.

But of course, awards are not the reason O’Loughlin values her AAA membership. “I love how AAA has built such a strong base and following, and that it has such a strong commitment to education as well as research and professional development,” she said. “The organization really listens to its members. And it hasn’t grown to be so big that people feel lost in it. I love how it provides support and membership to staff as well as faculty. And I like how AAA is constantly listening for ways to improve from the leadership and membership, that it’s not just stuck in the status quo.”

O’Loughlin’s advice to young anatomists is to join AAA as soon as possible, which is one reason why the IUSM-B pays the membership fee for its anatomy education PhD graduate students. “Because we feel it’s important for them to be part and to present early on.” She also encourages students to actively participate in the association. Your membership is only as good as you put into it. The more you participate, the more you get out of it,” she said.

‘Ladies in Armor’ aka European Toads Featured on AR Cover

The August issue of AAA’s The Anatomical Record features a stunning cover image of skin calcification or dorsal head skin and parotoid glands in European toads (genus Bufo).

The image accompanies an article from a research team from Serbia and the Netherlands who used micro-computed tomography to “document and compare the level of calcification in the skin of the head and the parotoids (the external skin glands) in males and females of common and spined toads, Bufo bufo and B. spinosus.” The result was demonstration of “a significant effect of species, size and sexual dimorphism on the calcification level of skin and parotoids.”

Read the latest issue of The Anatomical Record.

Save the Date for the Next NIH EDI Director’s Speaker Series

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) invites you to join them virtually on Aug. 9, 2023, from 9-10 a.m. ET for the second event of its’ EDI Director’s Speaker Series.

Dr. Robert Winn, director and Lipman Chair in Oncology of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Massey Cancer Center is the featured speaker.

Learn more about the EDI Director’s Speaker Series.

Life Sciences Fair Returns to Capitol Hill

Jennifer Zeitzer and Ellen Kuo from FASEB at the Congressional Life Sciences Fair on Capitol Hill. Credit: Joe Shymanski.

The Congressional Life Sciences Fair, sponsored by FASEB and the Coalition for Life Sciences (CLS) returned to Capitol Hill for the first time since 2019 on July 19, 2023. The event showcases showcase how the federal investment in medical research supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) advances science, improves health, and contributes to economic growth in the United States.

The FASEB display featured the variety of data management and sharing resources available for researchers through the DataWorks! Help Desk and data salons. Information was also shared about the DataWorks! Prize, which is supported by funding from NIH. Entries for the 2023 Prize are due by August 15 and can be submitted online.

In addition to the DataWorks! program, three FASEB member societies – the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, American Society of Human Genetics, and Genetics Society of America – were also featured at the fair.

Anatomy Career Center

The Anatomy Career Center provides an easy way for job seekers to review and apply for available jobs and for employers or hiring agencies to post jobs in the anatomical sciences and related fields.