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Business Profiles
Local software company plays Hollywood role
The Journal Record (January 2005)
Digital artistry may be Hollywood’s latest trend, but it’s an Oklahoma company that’s playing one of the most important roles--helping digital artists learn new skills.
Oklahoma City-based PL Studios, Inc. develops software training kits under its label “Digital-Tutors.” The interactive CD-ROMs guide users through some of the most popular software titles for digital artists, including Maya and Illustrator.
The kits are aimed at both beginning and advanced users, and are designed so users can work at their own pace, said Sandip Patel, global business director for PL Studios.
“It’s all interactive-based, and what the beauty of it is, someone who’s working for, like, a gaming company, doesn’t necessarily have to go back to school to brush up on skills and learn more,” he said. “They can just buy our product and still be able to work all day long and then use our product in the evenings. It’s kind of like a night class. It’s all self-paced.”
The company’s most recent kit, “Maya Intermediate: Female Android Modeling," was released last week and will likely be one of their most popular titles, Patel said.
“We have a lot of people wanting to know how to make a robot, and so we show them how to make a female android,” he said. “And it’s perfect now, because ‘I, Robot’ is out on video.”
The four-disc kit spans seven hours and guides users through every step, including sketching an image, creating an image and rendering it to how it would appear on TV. Just as important, Patel said, it gives users a reference to use again and again.
“The lifetime of the disc won’t ever expire, like when you’re done with a class, you’re done, you don’t really have a reference to go back to,” he said. “We’re providing an optimal reference, so you can keep going back and brushing up your skills.”
PL Studios began as one individual working from home, and now includes seven full-time employees and two part-time employees. As digital artistry has grown in popularity, so has the company’s success, and Patel estimates their growth rate at about 500 percent. It is the only company of its kind in the Midwest, he said, which has helped bring attention to both the company and to the state. Most of the company’s clients are from overseas.
“As we grow, and as we become more successful, that will bring morelimelight to Oklahoma,” Patel said. “And it differentiates us from everyone else in Hollywood. It’s kind of neat when companies like Pixar contact us in Oklahoma, as opposed to just going down the street.”
The company is also differentiated by the fact that it’s made up of educators, Patel said. Because they’re not affiliated with a studio, they’re happy to shownew users the methods the professionals use.
“We don’t mind telling you how commercials are made, how professionals do it, the tips, secrets and stuff that a lot of people wouldn’t want to share,” Patel said. “In art, there’s a huge ego involved in everything that’s done, and we don’t work with that.”
At home health agency, patient is number one focus
Oklahoma's Nursing Times (July 31, 2006)
At Universal Healthcare, employees have one focus: the patient.
“We let clinicians be clinicians without a lot of the corporate restrictions: we need you to do this by this time, or we need more out of you, because our numbers aren’t looking good,” said Randy Tipton, administrator. “We provide care to patients based on what their needs are.”
Universal started in July 2002 as a physical therapy company, but after contracting with home health companies, Tipton and owner Blake Murdock thought they could provide the same services on their own. They also wanted to provide care without some of the restrictions they saw imposed by other home health companies.
“A lot of home health companies put stipulations on how much therapy they want you to do,” Tipton said. “We felt that if it was our company, we could provide the patient what they wanted and needed, and not have to worry about numbers and money.”
Universal expanded into home health in April 2004, and specializes in geriatric care, including rehabilitative services such as physical, occupational, and speech therapy. Universal’s skilled nursing services include wound care, cardiopulmonary care, diabetic care, orthopedic care, infusion therapy, and post surgical care. The company works with several care facilities across the state, and strives to become part of the facilities’ teams.
Universal offers free, no-obligation consultations, both on-site and over the telephone. On-site consultations can be conducted anywhere, including in the home, at a doctor’s office, or at a hospital or other care facility. During the consultation, employees determine whether patients qualify for home healthcare, and if so, what services they’re eligible for according to Medicare guidelines.
Universal employees don’t have a quota to meet, Tipton said, leaving them free to devote as much time as the patient needs, rather than worry about squeezing in a pre-determined number of patients.
“A lot of home health companies operate with a certain productivity ratio for the employees, but we don’t have that here,” he said. “If it’s going to take an hour with a patient, then they have time to spend an hour with the patient. If it’s going to take two hours with the patient, they have time to spend two hours with the patient. It depends on what the patient needs, and not, ‘I’ve got to get seven visits in today, my time’s up with you, so I have to go.’”
Universal looks for employees who have not only clinical competency, but also good personal relations skills and a commitment to the company’s goals.
“When you entrust someone to provide care, especially in a home situation, trust becomes such a big factor,” Tipton said. “You want genuinely honest, caring people. You can say that over and over and over again, but I think we exemplify that we are genuinely here to provide quality care.”
Many people aren’t aware of how accessible home healthcare is, Tipton said. Not only is it available to a wide range of patients, it also allows them the final say in their care, including what provider they’ll use. Many patients also don’t understand the Medicare system, and helping educate people is one of the company’s greatest challenges, he said.
“There are a lot of confusing things about Medicare,” Tipton said. “We don’t have a lot of resources out there to help the elderly with their questions, and it’s a confusing, complicated system “
As with many healthcare facilities and organizations, staffing is another challenge, he said.
“We have the same challenges other companies do, like finding the right people to match your vision--good staff, people who will carry out your plans,” Tipton said.
However, the company also knows it’s improving the lives of its patients, he said.
“One of the greatest rewards is to see them get better from the results of our interventions,” Tipton said.
For more information about Universal Healthcare, call 272-0700.
Oklahoma City firm helps at-risk youth transition into the work force
The Journal Record (March 21, 2005)
At Effective Transitions, Inc. the problem may be complex but the philosophy is simple: reach out to at-risk youth early, and you may help them stay on track throughout their lives.
“It’s like the old adage--an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure,” said CEO Myron Mayberry.
This approach, along with a comprehensive method to helping young people transition into the workforce, helped the organization earn “Best Practice” recognition in the Workforce in Action program. The award is handed out by the Central Oklahoma Workforce Investment Board, which oversees workforce development programs in Oklahoma, Logan and Canadian counties.
Effective Transitions provides counseling, mentoring and educational services for at-risk youth, some of whom have already made their way into the juvenile justice system, Mayberry said. By teaching them the importance of morals, ethics and a sense of community and family, the organization hopes to provide youths with a foundation that will support them as they enter adulthood.
“If you can teach that to them young, then it prevents a lot of the issues andproblems that we see in the adult population,” Mayberry said. “It keeps us from having to deal with a lot of these issues and sending 18-, 19-, 20-year-olds into the adult correctional system.”
The organization formed out of Mayberry’s experience as a consultant to other local and national outreach programs. About three years ago, he and wife Tasha decided to incorporate what they’d learned with their own principles and establish an outreach program designed to teach young people the value of ethics and hard work. They wanted a way to reach kids early, preventing or intervening in situations that could have devastating consequences later on.
“It’s following the medical model of, let’s catch the sickness while it’s early, let’s catch the problems while they’re early, instead of waiting until they’re full-fledged things that we cannot even deal with,” Mayberry said.
One of the keys to this, Mayberry said, is helping young people form realistic goals and devise a workable plan to reach them.
“We’re able to help them develop a plan, something for them to follow, because, bottom line, they all have wishes, but a wish without a way to get there creates a lot of fruitless effort,” he said. “So what we’ve tried to do is give them the infrastructure to actually make a plan to reach their goals.”
While the organization stresses developing realistic goals, Mayberry said they aren’t trying to discourage young people from having high aspirations. Rather, they want to help young people more effectively channel their ambition.
“We don’t kill dreams; we try to nurture dreams,” Mayberry said. “But also, we give them realistic alternatives, and make sure they understand the steps that you have to go through to reach your goal.”
While the most rewarding part of the job is seeing the difference in kids after they go through the program, Mayberry said being recognized with an award provides reinforcement that the organization’s efforts are valued.
“Number one, it’s recognition that after the monitoring and after the evaluation, that people actually value your services,” he said. “And number two, that they recognize that you are working with a population that has traditionally not been an easy population to work with.”
Executive Profiles
Claudia San Pedro rises to the top in the Oklahoma Office of State Finance
The Journal Record (June 21, 2005)
When Claudia San Pedro was 2, her parents left Mexico City in search of a better life for their family. Today, their daughter is one of the highest ranking Hispanic Oklahomans in state government.
“It’s amazing, and a true testament to the American Dream that their choice to come over here provided so many opportunities for themselves and for us,” San Pedro said.
San Pedro was recently named director of the Office of State Finance, after serving as director of the agency’s budget division. She took over June 1.
San Pedro’s parents came to the United States so her father could study medicine. He eventually had a private practice, but the family returned to Mexico often to visit relatives. Through these visits, San Pedro came to value not only the United States’ political system, but also the services it provided, she said.
“The fact that you can rely on your roads, your fire, your police, a public education system that truly does try to educate everybody, because you don’t see that in countries like Mexico,” she said.
San Pedro originally aspired to a teaching career. After graduating from Smith College with a degree in economics, however, family circumstances called her back to Oklahoma and she was forced to re-think her career goals. She later received her MBA from the University of Oklahoma, and eventually took a job with the State Regents for Higher Education, working there for 10 months. While there, she heard of a fiscal analyst position with the Oklahoma State Senate. Though she had never envisioned herself working in state government, it was a move she never regretted.
“I took that opportunity and I haven’t looked back since,” San Pedro said.
Her experience in state government, San Pedro said, has taught her how to ask the right questions when analyzing expenditures.
“You ought to be able to look at the numbers and they ought to tell you a story, of what the agency’s doing and what programs are accomplishing,” she said.
As state finance director, one of San Pedro’s primary goals is educating the public about the state budget. Over the next two to three months, she hopes to update the agency’s website with information about how taxpayer money is handled.
“I really believe that the more people know about how their money’s being spent, the better decisions they can make when they go to vote,” she said.
Her biggest challenges, San Pedro said, are taking on some of the changes that must be made to help the office function more effectively and securely. The agency is currently implementing a statewide software system that will integrate human resources, payroll, finance and purchasing. This, San Pedro said, will help the agency determine how efficiently state money is being spent. Another challenge is updating information technology security, an issue raised by the Oklahoma City bombing and the Sept. 11 attacks, she said.
Despite these challenges, San Pedro said her job does have one distinct reward: the ability to make a difference in the lives of other Oklahomans.
“That’s something that gets me excited to get up in the morning,” she said. “To know that the decisions that we make, and the projects that we’re working on really will have an impact on Oklahomans’ lives.”
Biz-Ed
OKC Business (April 3, 2006)
Higher education shouldn’t be restricted to college campuses anymore, says Dr. Mac McCrory of OSU-OKC. As the school’s new vice-president for business and industry relations, it’s his job to help bring education and training into the workplace.
“We have got to make education more responsive to business and industry needs,” McCrory said. “The traditional model of going to class Monday, Wednesday, Friday, at 9:30 to take an accounting course works well for an 18- or 19-year-old college student who lives on campus, but education and training providers have got to be responsive to their market.”
Increasingly, this market includes businesses, who want to develop job and communication skills among their employees. This requires adapting courses so that the location, hours, and cost are accessible to working professionals, McCrory said.
McCrory took over the newly created position at the beginning of February. He comes to the job from OSU’s Stillwater campus, where he directed the school’s wellness center for 25 years. There, he oversaw 17 programs, which he credits with enhancing both his ability to relate to consumers, and his business-management skills.
“The common thread to all of it, in addition to being consumer-oriented or health / wellness oriented, was that they were all businesses,” McCrory said. “So I have experience at being a business manager or CEO of a bunch of small companies.”
McCrory heard about the position through some of his colleagues, who wanted to apply for the job and asked him to write letters of reference for them. The more he learned about the job, the more he felt it was a perfect fit for this stage in his life.
“I’m in the last 10 or 15 years of my career, probably, and you can choose to phase out, or you can choose to climb one more set of stairs before you’re done,” McCrory said. “I guess I chose to climb another set of stairs.”
Because the business and industry relations department is new, it is still formulating its strategic plan, McCrory said. He hopes to create a network linking businesses with state higher education institutions, who can develop training programs tailored to a company’s needs. For now, though, he’s concentrating on assessing the school’s strengths.
“Number one is to have a better understandingof what we do well on this campus, what we can do better, and what new things we need to create, develop, and deliver,” McCrory said.
He’s also meeting the local business community, using his own background to connect with business leaders and learn how to develop the programs they need.
“I have a business background, and business savvy, so I think I understand what business and industry need in the way of training and education, and I know how to ask the right questions of business and industry people to determine what they need,” McCrory said.
Business and higher education have been separate for far too long, McCrory said, but there is a push across the country, and especially in the Midwest, to create a partnership between the two.
“I think business and industry and higher education are going to team up on a lot of different things,” McCrory said. “Not just education, but research: How is the research generated at a university, and how does that impact economic development in Oklahoma and in our region?”
Credit union president focuses on serving healthcare industry
Oklahoma's Nursing Times (Dec. 19, 2005)
Jane Hammil had little experience with the healthcare industry when she took over as president of Focus Federal Credit Union in July. However, learning about her company’s key membership is one of the best aspects of her new job, she said.
“That part I’m enjoying. I’m enjoying getting to know more about the Health Sciences Center, in particular--this area of explosion,” Hammil said. “It’s kind of like the mecca of healthcare here.”
Hammil has 14 years experience in the credit union industry, and previously served as a vice-president at another credit union, where she was on the senior management team for eight years. She was ready for a new challenge, she said.
“In this position, not only do I get a little more diversification, but I feel like can have more of an impact, a positive influence on the credit union movement,” Hammil said.
Both of Hammil’s parents worked in financial services, and she earned a bachelor’s degree in finance and an MBA. After working at a bank duringcollege, she moved into the credit union industry after graduating.
In addition to leading the company, Hammil said her most important responsibility is helping members get the most for their money.
“Bottom line, my job is to make sure that the members are getting the best deal out there, and that we’re here for them in their time of need, because that’s what we’re all about,” she said. “That sounds easy, but you’ve got a lot of technology, and you’ve got a lot of people management, and running a facility is not an inexpensive endeavor.”
Focus is constantly evaluating how to better serve the healthcare industry, Hammil said, a group that needs more flexibility because of widely varying hours and demanding schedules.
“They’re not just an 8 to 5 type of industry,“ she said. “They take advantage of the electronic services more. Convenience rules in their world.”
Hammil plans to focus on the union’s growth, both to new geographical areas and to new groups of people. The company expanded to Grady County about three years ago, and Hammil hopes to continue reaching out.
“There’s a lot of potential for growth, and we know that we have not fully tapped that potential,” she said. “We know that there’s more that we can do for individuals that want to be part of a credit union, and we know we can serve them.”
Translating that vision into reality is one of the most challenging aspects of her job, Hammil said.
“That’s where the rubber hits the road, where you’ve really got to get down to the business of putting together a plan,” she said. “Okay, we say we want to serve members better, how are we going to do that? We say we want to expand and be able to offer services to more and new members; how are we going to do that?”
However, the company’s staff and board members have helped ease her transition to president, Hammil said.
“They’re a young but experienced group,“ she said. “The board members are high-caliber professionals, and I appreciate that they are all from different institutions and a variety of backgrounds. They’re very committed to serving the membership. I’ve noticed that down to the individual level. They give up a lot of their time, and it’s strictly volunteer.”
It is this dedication that Hammil is most proud of, she said.
“I’m proud to be part of an organization that does walk the walk; we really do care about people around here,” Hammil said. “I’ve received feedback from members telling us what a difference we’ve made in their lives, that we weren’t just a financial institution, that we were willing to go the extra distance and help them when it was needed, and give them advice where it was needed.”
Announcements / Events
New McBride Clinic in OKC to ease wait times for patients
The Journal Record (Aug. 24, 2005)
At McBride Clinic in Oklahoma City, an increase in business had one drawback: too many patients and not enough space. The clinic hopes its new hospital, opening in September, will ease some of the load and decrease wait times for patients.
“We had patients who were waiting longer than we would like to get in for surgeries; we just don’t have the room here,” said Amanda Sewell, of McBride’s marketing department.
The grand opening for McBride Clinic Orthopedic Hospital, at 9600 N. Broadway Extension, is scheduled for Sept. 12, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and reception. The hospital is an extension of McBride’s downtown Oklahoma City office, which will still be used for seeing patients. The clinic has been based downtown since its opening in 1919, and has been expanded or relocated several times as the practice grew.
McBride previously used Bone and Joint Hospital, established by the clinic in 1926, for surgeries, but needed more space than the 50-bed facility provided. In addition to the growing number of patients, McBride also needed to make room for its expanding staff. From its beginnings as a single office, McBride has grown to include 15 orthopedic surgeons, five rheumatologists, an occupational health doctor, two sports medicine family practice doctors and a podiatrist.
“We do have an overload here, and we need more space, so they’re really excited to get started out there,” Sewell said. “It’s going to be beneficial for the patients because they won’t have to wait as long to get in for surgery.”
The clinic also has offices across the state, including in Edmond and Norman. All of these offices, including Bone and Joint Hospital, will remain open.
The new hospital, which cost $30 million, was designed and built by The Benham Group and financed by MidFirst Bank. Construction took just over a year and a half, and the 100,000 square foot building includes 40 acute care beds, 40 rehab beds and six operating rooms. The hospital sits on 15 acres at Broadway and Britton Road.
McBride doctors helped design the new building, which includes radiology with CT and fluoroscopy; a post-anesthesia care unit; an ambulatory care center; an in-house dining and dietary facility; lab and pharmacy services; and a gift shop.
“The doctors oversaw almost all of the details that went into the hospital,” Sewell said. “They were very involved in the operating rooms and making sure that they got the appropriate equipment in there. They oversaw even as far down as sitting in the chairs in the patient rooms to make sure they were comfortable.”
This involvement ensures the hospital is focused on patient need above all else, Sewell said.
“I think that benefits patients, because they have patient care in mind, and that’s the biggest reason for building the hospital,” she said. “It’s not a money thing; they want to serve their patients.”
Despite its rapid growth, Sewell said the clinic has worked hard to keep up with patient needs, a process that involves not only responding to increased demand, but also anticipating it.
“They just take it in stride and keep going,” she said. “I think they were very forward thinking in knowing they were going to need the extra space.”
Regional hospital named in Solucient's Top 100
Oklahoma's Nursing Times (April 17, 2006)
In its first four years, Integris Canadian Valley Regional Hospital has not only enjoyed continued growth, it’s also gained national recognition. The hospital was recently named one of the “Top 100 Hospitals in America” by Solucient, a healthcare information products company that compiles an annual list of the highest-performing hospitals in the nation.
Canadian Valley was one of only two Oklahoma hospitals to make this year’s list, and administrator James Moore credits support from the community and from Integris for the hospital’s success.
“Being part of the Integris Health System is key, because we operate to meet the demands of the system, from a quality standpoint and an efficiency standpoint,” Moore said. “It keeps us in a mode of driving for excellence.”
The report, published in Modern Healthcare Magazine, grouped winners into five categories: major teaching hospitals, teaching hospitals, large community hospitals, medium community hospitals, and small community hospitals. Canadian Valley surpassed the median performance of its group, small community hospitals, in six of nine categories.
Solucient evaluates hospitals in clinical excellence, operating efficiency and financial health, and responsiveness to the community. The 2005 study measured risk-adjusted mortality, complications, and safety indexes; severity-adjusted average length of stay; expense per adjusted discharge, case mix- and wage-adjusted; profitability (operating profit margin); cash to total debt ratio; tangible assets (net plant, property, and equipment) per adjusted discharge; and growth in patient volume.
As a small community hospital, Canadian Valley has a close relationship with employees and with the city, Moore said.
“We’re just small enough that people realize their contribution makes a difference in our success,” he said. “We thrive on making sure everyone feels ownership for what we do every day, and that they‘re an important part.”
This involvement helps the hospital operate more efficiently, Moore said.
“If we need support from our city, we can go straight to the city manager or the city council, without having to go through layers of bureaucracy to make something happen,” he said.
In a small hospital employees are often on a first-name basis, and patients pick up on this camaraderie, Moore said. If patients have concerns, they know senior management is always accessible.
“You never have to go through several layers of management,” Moore said. “The doors are always open, and more people have my phone number than I‘m aware of. They know that they can go straight to the top if they have a question or concern about their care.”
Small hospitals face the same challenges as larger hospitals, Moore said, including recruiting and retention, reimbursement difficulties, and uninsured patients. However, in a small facility the impact is often greater.
“When you’re in a small community hospital setting, for the most part, your margins are pretty small,” Moore said. “It doesn’t take much bad debt or charity care or just the lack of reimbursement to absorb your bottom line.”
Fortunately, Moore said, Canadian Valley has a strong support system
“You just take it one day at a time,” he said. “Being part of Integris, we have an affiliation with a much larger system, and that certainly helps, because you have an abundance of resources to call upon.”
Heartland Hospice to host open houses for community
Oklahoma's Nursing Times (Jan. 30, 2006)
For many hospice providers, direct patient care is only part of their job; just as important is helping patients and their families understand hospice care and end-of-life issues. Heartland Home Health Care and Hospice hopes to do both, through several upcoming open houses.
Open houses are scheduled for three locations: Feb. 1 at the Norman office, Feb. 8 for the Oklahoma City office, and Feb. 15 for the Chickasha office. All last from noon to 6 p.m.
Heartland organized the open houses to educate the community and the local healthcare industry about its approach to end-of-life care, a philosophy that focuses on body and mind, said administrator Moya Cazares-Sealy, RN.
“We place an emphasis on the highest quality of life, through home health and hospice, and to have that high quality of life even with challenging situations,” she said. “We focus on the body, mind, and spirit, and take a holistic approach.”
The open houses are designed not only to spotlight Heartland’s services, but also to educate the community about end-of-life issues. Heartland’s full staff, including nurses, social workers, and chaplains, will be on hand to answer questions on everything from Alzheimer’s to adult daycare to grief support groups. This communication is vital in helping people deal with illness and death, Cazares-Sealy said.
“I think we have a death-denying society; people have questions and concerns about end-of-life care issues, and they need a safe place to talk about those issues and their feelings,” she said. “Most people are relieved when somebody opens that door and allows them the freedom to talk about those things.”
Because hospice is still misunderstood by some, Heartland hopes to clarify what hospice is and who can benefit from it.
“There are many myths about hospice,” Cazares-Sealy said. “A lot of people think that it’s only about dying, and that we only take care of cancer patients, when in fact, we take care of all kinds of patients--end stage heart patients, Parkinson’s patients, dementia patients--any condition with a life-limiting prognosis.”
Home care and hospice often work in conjunction, Cazares-Sealy said, with home care serving as a stepping stone to full-time hospice care. Hospice providers can help patients transition between the two, and can help them cope with every aspect of their illness, she said.
“People who want to go on home care may try everything they can to be able to rehab and get back to functioning at a high quality,” Cazares-Sealy said. “They deserve the chance to do that, and they may want to do that before they go on to hospice. We do disease and symptom management, and client / patient education. We take a team approach to physical, psychological, social, and spiritual care.”
Heartland provides other public outreach services, including making presentations to community, church and professional organizations. The organization also holds a weekly grief and loss recovery support group, open to Heartland families as well as to the public. Volunteers also play an important role in the organization, providing over 5 percent of direct patient care. For information about any of these services, those interested can call Heartland’s Oklahoma City office. General information about Heartland is available at its website, www.heartlandhomehealth.com.
Linda Thompson, an immunologist with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, is using mice to study a disease called severe combined immune deficiency. She uses a technique called fetal thymic organ culture, which involves harvesting the thymus, an organ that sits of top of the heart, from fetal mice.
“You can dissect the thymus and it will continue to grow in exactly the same way that it does in the whole mouse,” Thompson said. “It gives you an experimental system that you can manipulate and study what’s going on.”
The disease is caused by an absence of an enzyme called adenosine deaminase, or ADA. After the mouse organs are harvested, they are treated with a drug that inhibits ADA, mimicking the disease and allowing researchers to understand the enzyme’s importance.
“The development of the fetal thymuses was arrested when we added the drug,” Thompson said. “That allowed us to really study in detail what the impact was of not having that enzyme there.”
Thompson’s primary goal is to gain insight into how the immune system develops, not necessarily to find an immediate cure. However, the research could prove valuable for other researchers in the future, she said.
“That’s not to say we might not learn something that could be translated,” Thompson said. “I think the developing immune system is so important for understanding autoimmunity, and also for understanding malignancies, leukemia and lymphomas. Anything we learn about how the immune system normally develops has benefits in those other areas.”
Thompson first started studying the disease as a post-doctoral fellow in the late 1970s. After the introduction of new research techniques, like the fetal thymic organ culture process, she decided to revisit her previous research about five years ago. The improved research techniques have allowed her to study the disease more effectively, she said.
“I think we have a very unique way of looking at it,” Thompson said. “These culture systems where the cells actually develop in a culture dish, no one ever looked at this disease that way before. They used cultured cell lines and other things that really weren’t very good models for studying how cells develop.”
Thompson chose the disease as a research project because at the time, it was one of the few immune diseases for which the genetic basis was known.
“That really intrigued me, that we could understand a whole disease by the fact that there was a single base change in DNA that led to a single amino acid change in a protein, and the whole disease could be explained by that,” she said.
Thompson has received a total of $1 million in grant money from the National Institutes of Health, including a four-year grant that started in December. She has also published papers about the project in various medical journals, and has spoken about her research at international conferences. The interest from other researchers and from grant-administering government agencies is an important indicator of how research is viewed in the scientific community, she said.
“We have two kinds of feedback,” Thompson said. “One is whether you can get your papers published, because they’re subjected to review by your peers, and the other is review of a grant application--that’s really the bottom line. If the government’s ready to spend taxpayer money on you, then people think the project’s worthwhile.”
Recent years have brought significant advancements in immunology research, Thompson said, and she sees promise for future developments.
“In the last 10 years, the number of immune deficiency diseases for which the genetic basis is known has mushroomed,” she said. “Almost every month I pick up a review article where there’s another list of genes that’s been discovered to be responsible for certain diseases.”
Understanding an immune disease’s genetic basis is an important step, and one that’s necessary for developing effective treatments, Thompson said.
“It’s always appealing to understand what causes the disease to begin with, because once you know that, you can start thinking about gene therapy,” she said.
Local researcher wins national grant to study immune system, bioterrorism
Oklahoma's Nursing Times (Oct. 6, 2003)
The work of an Oklahoma researcher may one day play a direct role in how the nation prepares for a possible bioterrorist attack.
Paul Kincade, a biomedical researcher with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, is working on a model to help researchers more accurately study the effects of biological and chemical agents on the human immune system. His project is funded by a two-year, $616,000 grant he recently won from the National Institutes of Health.
The project involves transplanting human cells into mice, so that researchers would have a way to study the effects of various agents on the immune system.
“We hope to get many if not all of the components of the human immune system to develop in these mice,” Kincade said. “Then you could test vaccines, you could test immune responses to experimental treatments and you’d be able to see how human cells respond to kinds of infection. And because the project includes bioterrorism, it could be a place where we could test the effects of different kinds of agents on human cells in a safe way.”
Though the study is part of a national effort to prepare for acts of terrorism, Kincade said the benefits of the research could extend into other areas of medical research as well.
“The key thing that we think is so nice about this project, is the possibility to yield basic information and help develop practical experimental procedures,” he said.
The funding is good for a two-year period, which Kincade said won’t be long enough to finish the project. However, he hopes to accomplish enough in that time to make significant steps toward improving the model.
“We will hopefully make a lot of progress and get a lot of information, and do most of what we wanted to do,” Kincade said. “But, like all projects in science, there’s no end. If it’s a good project, it opens up a lot more. The really good projects never end.”
All grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health are given out based on competition and peer review, Kincade said. Applicants had to submit a grant proposal that was then evaluated for very specific criteria.
“In this case, they were looking for innovation and for developing new ways to study the immune system,” he said.
Only about one in five applicants receives a grant, Kincade said, and it took about eight months from submission of his proposal to when he was awarded the funding.
While Kincade is actively involved in anti-bioterrorism research, he said all biomedical researchers contribute to the preparation for a bioterrorism attack, either directly or indirectly. Information already gathered about how the body works and how the immune system functions are valuable tools in helping researchers analyze and predict the body’s response to biological or chemical agents, he said.
“All the basic information that we’ve gotten from thousands and thousands of investigators putting together pieces of the puzzle, all of that helps provide a base on which you can understand bioterrorism,” Kincade said. “Some people, of course, are very directly involved in applied things. We aren’t doing that, but it takes a whole spectrum of people who do very focused work and people who generate a lot of background information that’s needed to understand the overall problem.”
A change in culture
OKC Business (July 24, 2006)
In the last 20 years, Norman has established itself as a burgeoning center for science, research, and technology. Not only is this leading to scientific and technological advances, these industries are also helping feed the city’s economy by attracting even more organizations.
“Once you get something up there, it acts as a lightning rod, in that it attracts other things and other people,” said Jeff Kempel, director of the National Severe Storms Laboratory, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The city may be best known for its growing weather community, which includes the National Weather Center, the Storm Prediction Center, the Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms, and Weathernews, among several others. Kempel said when he came to Norman in 1973, there were six faculty members and a small $2 million lab across town. Now, several state and federal organizations are located there, and the National Weather Center employs over 650 people.
This rapid growth has fostered even more development, Kempel said.
“Jobs were created, and people were attracted not only to the jobs, but also to the expertise, the colleagues they’d have here,” Kempel said. “Once it was recognized that there were good people with national reputations, other people wanted to join them.”
Groups were also attracted by the proximity to the University of Oklahoma, which has worked to bring new science and research to the city, as well as developing state-of-the-art facilities to house them.
“There’s been a real focus at the University of Oklahoma on encouraging research, and attracting grants to do research, and there’s been a concerted effort to find new faculty, that had research grants, either in place or in the works, that they could bring with them when they came,” said Don Wood, executive director of the Norman Economic Development Coalition.
Several research facilities have recently been built, including the University of Oklahoma Research Campus, which is home not only to the National Weather Center, but also to Stephenson Research and Technology Center, which focuses on biotechnology, bioengineering, and robotics; One Partners Place, for private sector companies; and Research Partners Building, which houses university research, federal weather projects, and private companies. One of the most notable occupants of the Research Campus is Weathernews, the world’s largest full-service weather company.
The arrival of these groups has attracted smaller companies, who are establishing one- or two-person offices to be near all of the research activity, Wood said. Many of these companies hope to find commercial applications for the research, he said.
“What we’re seeing is a change in culture, and we’re beginning to see some of the payoff for it, but the payoff will grow exponentially as this research community continues to grow,” Wood said.
Businesses have also been brought in by the Emerging Technology Entrepreneurial Center, or eTec, said Norman Mayor Harold Haralson. Managed by the Norman Economic Development Coalition, eTec is a small business “incubator” designed to accelerate a company’s growth by providing experts, materials, and advisers.
