UNMC for the record










picture disc.


Clinically, the winners


From left, pharmacy students Kendra Schomer, Casey Koch and Gina Paletta recently won the Midwest College of Clinical Pharmacy’s Clinical Pharmacy Challenge, a clinical skills competition. The students will represent UNMC in the national competition with online rounds starting in late summer/early fall.




UNMC and The Nebraska Medical Center doubled the amount of food collected from 2012 to 2013 in the annual campus-wide food drive. From April 22 through May 10, med center and UNMC staff, faculty and students collected 3,902 pounds of food. This was the second year the drive was held in the spring; it had previously been held in November.

The Department of Cellular & Integrative Physiology enjoyed huge success at the American Physiological Society (APS) meeting at Experimental Biology 2013 (held in Boston in late April). Multiple cellular and integrative physiology students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty made oral presentations and/or poster presentations at the meeting. The following students and postdoctoral fellows received awards recognizing their outstanding work:

  • Debra Lima Irsik received an APS/NIDDK Minority Travel Fellowship Award. In addition, she was selected to present a platform talk in the session titled “Recent Advances in Renal Pathophysiology.” The title of her talk was “ER-alpha splice variants protect against diabetic glomerular enlargement and macrophage infiltration”;
  • Alicia Schiller and Urmi Basu were recipients of the 2013 Caroline Tum Suden/Frances Hellebrandt Professional Opportunity Award. In addition, both Schiller and Basu gave oral presentations in the “Neural Control and Autonomic Regulation Trainee Featured Topics” session. The title of Schiller’s talk was “Unilateral renal denervation improves autonomic balance in conscious rabbits with chronic heart failure.” Basu’s talk was titled “Angiotensin II is rapidly metabolized in neuronal cell culture media as determined by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry”;
  • Rodrigo Del Rio, Ph.D., received the Postdoctoral and Early Career Research Recognition Award from the APS Neural Control and Autonomic Regulation section. The award recognition was based on the abstract that he submitted to EB2013, titled “Carotid body ablation improves survival, breathing disorders and autonomic control in heart failure rats,” and was presented in poster form at the meeting;
  • Adam Case, Ph.D., received the “Research Recognition Award” from the APS Cell and Molecular Physiology Section. This award is presented to one postdoctoral fellow who demonstrates excellence in research, writing and presentation skills. Finalists for the award were chosen on the basis of their submitted abstract to Experimental Biology 2013, and these candidates were judged on their work during their poster presentation. Case’s presentation was titled “Hydrogen peroxide is not increased in angiotensin II-stimulated neurons overexpressing superoxide dismutase.”

The UNMC Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation and david day|associates (dda) earned a Pinnacle Award from the Omaha Chapter of the American Marketing Association’s (AMA) for the Department’s 2010/2011 Biennial Report titled “Lives in Motion.” The report received the AMA’s highest honor in the Communications: Small Business category.