A look back at 2009

A year in pictures The slideshow above features images from the UNMC community in 2009. Click on the images to see more information.

As UNMC moves into 2010, it’s time to reflect on 2009.

Last year, UNMC experienced milestones such as the opening of the Durham Research Center II and seeing its extramural research funding top the $100 million mark.

Below is a chronological list of these and other major developments at the medical center in 2009.

January

• UNMC researchers secure more than $15 million in defense funds.

February

• UNMC hosts its first Science Cafe.
  
• Howard Gendelman, M.D., is named UNMC’s third Scientist Laureate.

April

• Kendra Schmid, Ph.D., of the College of Public Health, appears on Oprah to discuss her research into the science of attractiveness.
  
• Ayman El-Mohandes, M.B.B.Ch., M.D., M.P.H., is named the new College of Public Health dean.
  
• UNMC Chancellor Harold M. Maurer, M.D., is inducted into the Omaha Business Hall of Fame.

May

• UNMC opens and dedicates the Durham Research Center II.

June

• Brady Beecham becomes the first UNMC student to receive the Fogarty International Clinical Research Fellowship.

July

• Ruth (Pakieser) Macnamara, Ph.D., is appointed assistant dean of the new UNMC College of Nursing Northern Division in Norfolk. Also, construction begins on the J. Paul and Eleanor McIntosh College of Nursing building.
  
• UNMC’s extramural research funding tops $100 million . Grant highlights of the year include James Turpen receiving the state’s largest National Institutes of Health grant ever — a $17.2 million award to support the Institutional Development Award Program (IDeA), and UNMC receiving nearly $10 million in federal stimulus funds.

August

• UNMC launches its new brand.

Sad goodbyes In 2009, UNMC witnessed the passing of several community members including: Margaret “Peggy” Wheelock, Ph.D.; Robert Grissom, M.D.; Walter Friedlander, M.D.; Carl Camras, M.D.; and William Gust, M.D.

September

• UNMC enrollment reaches an all-time high.

October

• UNMC announces plans to construct the Stanley M. Truhlsen Eye Institute.
  
• UNMC’s Iqbal Ahmad, Ph.D., and his research team show that regular body cells can be reprogrammed to act as embryonic stem cells.

November

• The University of Nebraska Board Regents upholds the current NU embryonic stem cell research policy.

December

• UNMC opens a campus ice skating rink.
  
• UNMC announces several new developments and activities in China, including a new office in Beijing and a lymphoma center in Tianjin.