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Initiatives Undertaken by SCAI and Its Members
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SCAI IS COMMITTED TO EDUCATION AND OUTREACH |
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To see a simulation of sepsis-induced inflammation, created by high school students in conjunction with SCAI members, click here."
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"Ongoing initiatives in various groups include the following:" |
- In an attempt to establish complex systems approaches
to critical illness, Dr. Edmund Neugebauer (President,
SCAI) organized two international workshops in Cologne,
Germany dedicated to bringing together clinicians,
bench scientists, and mathematicians.
- Drs. Clermont (Vice-President, SCAI) and Vodovotz
(Secretary, SCAI) organized a third workshop, Complex
Systems in Critical Illness, which was held in November
2003 at the University of Pittsburgh. It was at
the 2003 conference that we decided to launch SCAI.
The fourth workshop is scheduled, in a larger format,
for November 2004.
- Dr. Rudiger Brause at the University of Cologne
has developed a neural network-based predictive
algorithm for management of sepsis patients.
- Dr. William Aird (Harvard University), a leading
authority on the role of the endothelium in sepsis
and who is establishing his own trans-institutional,
interdisciplinary group to utilize complex systems
approaches to delineate the role of the endothelium
in sepsis, has endorsed both this conference and
SCAI enthusiastically, and has been invited to present
the findings of his group at this meeting.
- Dr. Gary An (Cook County Hospital, Chicago), who
has pioneered the use of agent-based simulation
for the study of sepsis is also a founding member
of SCAI.
- Drs. Clermont and Vodovotz, who along with Dr.
Carson Chow (formerly of the University of Pittsburgh
and now at the NIH) have created their own mathematical
model of the acute inflammatory response, and have
been funded by the NIGMS as well as other organizations.
They also have created a seminar series at the University
of Pittsburgh, dedicated to the discussion of the
molecular and clinical features of acute inflammation,
which we hope will serve as the basis for educational
initiatives at various institutions.
- Drs. Clermont and Vodovotz, along with Drs. Billiar
(Chair, Department of Surgery) and Fink (Chair,
Department of Critical Care Medicine) at the University
of Pittsburgh are co-founders of a company (Immunetrics,
Inc.) dedicated to the optimization of sepsis therapy
though modeling of the inflammatory response. A
partner in this venture is IBM Life Sciences, the
leading in silico biology company, as well as the
University of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh
Medical Center.
- The first business meeting of SCAI was held March
11, 2004 in Munich, Germany. It was at this meeting
that the Officers of SCAI were elected. In addition,
a draft of the SCAI bylaws was prepared and a Board
of Directors was named. The Board consists of Gary
An (Chicago), Silvia Daun (Cologne), Steve Chang
(Pittsburgh), and Thorsten Tjardes (Cologne). In
accordance with the SCAI bylaws, the Board includes
one trainee (Ms. Daun). Steve Chang was elected
first Chairman of the Board of Directors of SCAI.
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