Volume 8, Issue 19· December 16, 2013 

 www.usuhs.edu 

Learning to Care for Those in Harm’s Way 
Sharon Willis 

Deputy Vice President for External Affairs and Managing Editor

Gwendolyn Smalls 

Chief, Media Affairs 

Master Sgt. Oshawn Jefferson 

Deputy Chief, Media Affairs 

Christine Creenan-Jones

Editor and Layout Artist 

MC2 Brittney Cannady

Writer 

The Pulse is printed by USU’s 

Duplicating Center. 

Production

The Pulse is funded by the Department of 

Defense and published by the Uniformed 

Services University. It is authorized for 

members of the U.S. military services, 

USU alumni, faculty and staff. Contents 

of the Pulse are not necessarily the official 

views of, or endorsed by, the DoD or 

USU. Appearance of anything resembling 

advertising in this publication does not 

constitute endorsement by the DoD, USU 

or Pulse staff members. 

The contents of this publication shall be 

made available for use or patronage 

without regard to race, color, religion, 

sex, national origin, age, marital status, 

physical handicap, political affiliation or 

any other non-merit factor of the user or 

patron. 

Editorial content is edited, prepared and 

provided by the USU Office of External 

Affairs. The editor reserves the right to 

edit articles to conform to DoD policy and 

Associated Press style. All photos are 

DoD photos unless otherwise indicated. 

The Pulse will be published bi-weekly on 

Mondays. The deadline for submissions 

is at 4 p.m. Tuesday prior to the 

publication date. Submissions can be 

sent to Christine.creenanjones@usuhs.edu or 301-295-3338. 

January is Cervical Health Awareness Month 

By Christine Creenan-Jones, editor 

On the cover 

Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Bonnie Sanchez, 

Army Staff Sgt. Michael Bennett and Stephen 

Huntington were members of the Combined Federal Campaign’s leadership team at the Uniformed 

Services University. Their hard work has led to a 

successful campaign at USU. Read more about the 

CFC on page 2.

2 The Pulse The Pulse · The Official USU Newsletter 

Photo by Christine Creenan-Jones 

 Want to prevent cervical cancer? Get screened and vaccinated. 

 Regular Pap tests and immunization against human 

papillomavirus – the leading 

cause of cervical cancer – are 

the best ways to safeguard 

women, said Navy Capt. (Dr.) 

Jeffrey Quinlan, vice chair of 

Family Medicine at the Uniformed Services University, 

and Air Force Maj. (Dr.) Christopher Bunt, the clinic chief at 

USU’s Family Health Center. 

 Both physicians recommend 

scheduling a Pap test every 

three to five years for most 

women 21 and over and beginning the HPV vaccination between 12 and 13 for boys and 

girls. Although it’s important 

to note, the approved age 

range for the HPV vaccination 

is nine through 26. 

 Although it’s always relevant, 

Quinlan and Bunt’s message is 

especially prudent now, because January is Cervical 

Health Awareness Month. 

 “My biggest goal as a physician is to help people make informed decisions,” said Bunt. 

“The latest scientific evidence 

shows that regular screenings 

and the HPV vaccination is the 

best way for women to protect 

themselves from cervical cancer.” 

 These measures could significantly reduce fatality rates for 

cervical cancer, which claims 

the lives of more than 3,000 

women each year. They also 

reduce the possibility of having 

to endure painful, emotionally 

taxing medical procedures in 

the fight against cervical cancer. 

 “The treatment of cervical 

cancer depends on the stage of 

cancer and may include surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy. In advanced cases, a hysterectomy may be performed,” said Quinlan. “So for 

obvious reasons, early detection is the key to successfully 

treating cervical cancer in the 

least invasive way possible.” 

 For more information about 

cervical health, speak with 

your physician or stop by 

USU’s Family Health Center. 

Getting screened and vaccinated 

against human papillomavirus are 

the best ways for women to protect themselves from cervical 

cancer. 

The Combined Federal Campaign 

at the Uniformed Services University exceeded its $105,000 goal by 

raising more than $154,000. These 

contributions will be used to support several CFC-sponsored charities. 
By Karen Carstens, writer at health.mil 

January 6, 2014 3

 The Defense Department advanced the study and treatment 

of traumatic brain injury in servicemembers by creating the 

world’s first human brain tissue 

repository for military personnel 

throughout 2013 at the Uniformed Services University. 

 The Center for Neuroscience 

and Regenerative Medicine 

Brain Tissue Repository was established with a grant from the 

Army Medical Research and Materiel Command. 

 “We have been at war for more 

than a decade, and our men and 

women have sacrificed,” Dr. 

Jonathan Woodson, Assistant 

Secretary of Defense for Health 

Affairs, said as he announced 

the repository’s creation last 

June. “The military health care 

system is bringing all the resources it can to better understand how to prevent, diagnose 

and treat traumatic brain injuries and to ensure that servicemembers have productive and 

long, quality lives.” 

 Dr. Daniel Perl, a neuropathologist and director of the 

brain tissue repository, recently 

told Health.mil that advancing 

research and care in this field 

requires extensive studies of human brain tissue samples, which 

will be archived at the USUbased research facility. 

 A key question in the diagnosis 

and treatment of traumatic 

brain injury in servicemembers 

is determining what exposure to 

bomb blasts does to the brain. 

 “It hasn’t really been studied in 

any detail, particularly any longterm effects,” said Perl. “That’s 

where I come in. I was recruited 

to essentially set up a state-ofthe-art lab to study long-term 

effects of exposure to high 

[impact] explosives.” 

 Funds have been allocated by 

the Defense Department and 

others in the past to study animal models, yet this is not the 

most effective way of studying 

traumatic brain injury in humans, Perl underscored. 

 “It’s only a good model if it 

mimics what happens in man,” 

he said. “So if you don’t know 

what happens in a man, then it’s 

hard to say which animal model 

is correct.” 

 “We really have to go back to 

square one to see what’s happening in the human and study 

it.” 

 That, however, is the tricky 

part. In order to conduct longterm studies, human brains 

must be donated to further this 

kind of research. Usually there is 

just a small window of opportunity after a potential donor 

dies to transport and preserve 

human tissue for scientific purposes, not to mention the issue 

of getting the cooperation of the 

family. 

 Perl, who is also a professor of 

pathology at USU, said that family members can contribute to 

the tissue bank by donating the 

brains of deceased servicemembers, either active duty or retired, who have experienced 

traumatic brain injury. 

 In addition, family members 

can donate the brains of servicemembers who did not experience traumatic brain injury to 

the repository. This allows researchers to conduct comparative studies using unaffected 

brains and brains that were adversely affected by traumatic 

brain injury. 

 “There are a number of models 

of how this works,” Perl explained. “Virtually everything we 

know about diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or Lou Gehrig’s disease has been based on 

the study and collection of brain 

specimens donated to research. 

That’s how this science happens.” 

The Center for Neuroscience and 

Regenerative Medicine at the 

Uniformed Services University 

established a Brain Tissue Repository last year to study traumatic 

brain injury in servicemembers. 

Brain bank to revolutionize study of traumatic 

brain injury in servicemembers 

Continued to page 5 
4 The Pulse The Pulse · The Official USU Newsletter 

Do you have a story for the Pulse? 

Submit your ideas to christine.creenan-jones@usuhs.edu. Pulse staff members are always looking 

for new leads about the people, programs, research and scholarship at the Uniformed Services 

University. 

Photo by MC2 Brittney Cannady 

 Dr. Michael Roy, a professor of 

Medicine and director of the Division of Internal Medicine at 

the Uniformed Services University, is helping to bring posttraumatic stress therapy into the 

21st century with Virtual Iraq/

Afghanistan. The advanced simulation technology created by 

faculty at the University of 

Southern California’s Institute 

for Creative Technologies in 

2004, and used by Roy since 

2007, is an interactive method 

of therapy that takes patients 

back to Middle Eastern war 

zones. 

 With virtual reality goggles 

and a controller in hand, veterans with post traumatic stress 

find that the virtual environment can help them cope with 

anxiety, depression and other 

persistent symptoms that can 

sometimes follow combat deployments. 

 “For these patients who suffer 

from PTS, that feeling of hypervigilance they had while deployed doesn’t go away, they’re 

not sleeping. As a result, that 

fatigue eventually takes a toll on 

the body,” said Roy, who is also 

the director of Recruitment for 

USU’s Center for Neuroscience 

and Regenerative Medicine. 

 For some veterans, the events 

that brought on their PTS symptoms remain as fresh as the day 

they occurred and can trigger 

high levels of anxiety. Virtual 

Iraq, a form of exposure therapy, is a way to confront these 

traumatic memories through 

realistic simulations that replicate the look, sound and even 

smells of war, including gunfire, 

explosions, burning trash, helicopters and other battle stimuli. 

 Although this cutting-edge 

therapy may not work for everyone, Roy believes younger 

troops, especially the “videogame generation” could benefit 

from Virtual Iraq by getting 

them to use a familiar medium 

as a platform for meaningful 

communication. 

 “The idea is to conduct therapy 

while in the stressful, traumatic 

environment,” he said. “You 

want enough cues from their individual memories to get them 

talking. Once patients begin to 

talk, we can start to help.” 

 In addition to virtual reality, 

Roy is also using other technologies, such as Skype, FaceTime 

and smartphone-based apps to 

help servicemembers with posttraumatic stress symptoms. Roy 

hopes these approaches will be 

more appealing than traditional 

therapies, and will also help 

medical professionals reach out 

to servicemembers stationed at 

distant military bases. 

USU tackles post-traumatic stress through virtual reality 

By MC2 Brittney Cannady, writer 

Denece Clayborne, a nurse at the Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine, guides Rick Massimo, a reporter from WTOP, through 

different scenarios available within Virtual Iraq, an interactive therapy 

program for veterans with post-traumatic stress.
January 6, 2014 5

 Most human brains received 

by research facilities must be 

“fixed” in a preservative solution. 

 “We can make arrangements 

to have somebody extract the 

brain sample and arrange for it 

to reach us so that it doesn’t get 

damaged in transit,” said Perl. 

 Head trauma can lead to 

chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative disorder that involves the progressive 

accumulation of the protein tau 

in nerve cells within certain regions of the brain. As the tau 

protein accumulates, it disturbs 

function and appears to lead to 

symptoms seen in those affected 

like boxers or professional football players with such trauma. 

 Perl was recently involved in 

investigations on the long-term 

effects of repeated head trauma 

in former NFL football players 

and other athletes in collaboration with the Boston University 

Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy. 

 “All the discussion and concern about multiple concussions 

in football and hockey players is 

based on looking at human 

brains that have been donated 

after death for this kind of 

study,” he said. “In the last five 

years there has really been a 

whole revolution in terms of 

how we think about participating in these sports – all based on 

this kind of approach.” 

 The Boston research on NFL 

players, he added, was based on 

less than 100 donated brain 

specimens. 

 A similar approach could now 

also be applied to servicemembers, who are at risk of brain injuries from bomb blasts. Among 

the questions to be answered, is 

whether this kind of exposure 

leads to chronic traumatic encephalopathy. 

 “We need to start to look at the 

military experience in terms of 

the kinds of traumatic brain injury [that] our service members 

suffer,” said Perl. “Their traumatic brain injuries are rather 

unique in that they frequently 

involve exposure to these powerful explosives.” 

 Finding out more about the 

long-term effects of this exposure will help to better diagnose, 

prevent and treat traumatic 

brain injury among our troops. 

“We know folks come back from 

the battlefield, and they have 

long-term problems. They have 

sleep disorders, difficulty concentrating, memory problems,” 

said Perl. 

 “And we don’t understand the 

nature of those. Some of this has 

been called PTSD [posttraumatic stress disorder], 

which is really a psychiatric disease, but some of it is probably 

actual damage to the brain... and 

we have to sort this out and try 

to understand it better. And this 

is the way you do it,” he added. 

“We think this is very important 

work.” 

 Perl also pointed out that this 

research will not occur in a vacuum, but involve collaborative 

efforts with other research facilities. 

 “It’s not just us doing the research. We collect the brains 

and store them, but we also 

make them available to researchers wherever they are,” he 

said. “We don’t have all the ideas here or all the capabilities, so 

we want to expand that to whoever is out there who might have 

a particular technique or something unique that might shed 

light on this problem.” 

 Perl said requests for tissues 

come from a “who’s who” of 

prominent scientists at top research facilities, including Harvard University, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of California 

at San Francisco, Northwestern 

University and the National Institutes of Health. 

 This research can, however, 

only progress further if more 

brain tissue is made available. 

Hence the brain tissue repository established last year could 

help all researchers working in 

this area across the United 

States make major strides in the 

diagnosis and treatment of traumatic brain injury. 

 “We will foster more research,” 

Perl said in summing up the role 

of the repository. 

 For further information on donation to the brain tissue repository for traumatic brain injury, 

email the repository team 

at CNRM-TBI@usuhs.edu or 

call 855-DON-8TBI (855-366-

8824). 

Brain bank... 

Continued from page 3 
6 The Pulse The Pulse · The Official USU Newsletter 

Courtesy photo 

Adjunct faculty to lead American Medical Association

By Christine Creenan-Jones, editor 

 Dr. Robert Wah, an adjunct 

assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Uniformed Services University, was elected 

president-elect of the American 

Medical Association, the nation’s largest physician organization. 

 As president-elect, Wah will 

continue shaping AMA’s mission to promote the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health. 

 Wah’s June 2013 nomination 

for one of AMA’s senior-most 

positions came on the heels of a 

highly successful career as a reproductive endocrinologist and 

ob-gyn. He currently practices 

and teaches USU students at 

Walter Reed National Military 

Medical Center, where he also 

serves as the division head and 

vice chairman of the Navy’s largest ob-gyn training program. 

 “Dr. Robert Wah is an incredible physician, teacher and mentor. We are proud to have him 

on our faculty,” said Dr. Arthur 

Kellermann, dean of the School 

of Medicine at USU. “His selection as president-elect of the 

American Medical Association 

not only demonstrates USU’s 

value as the leadership academy 

for military healthcare, it reflects the high caliber of our faculty at Walter Reed Bethesda 

and other military hospitals 

around the world and our commitment to improve the health 

of all Americans – servicemembers and civilians alike.” 

 After serving as president-elect 

for one year, Wah will be sworn 

in as AMA president in June 

2014. 

Surgery chair inducted into nationally-recognized surgical association

By Christine Creenan-Jones, editor 

 Navy Capt. (Dr.) Eric Elster, chair of the Department of Surgery at the Uniformed Services 

University, recently became an elected member of 

the Southern Surgical Association – a prestigious, 

invitation-only organization that is comprised of 

top American surgeons. 

 Dr. Rich Norman, chair emeritus of the Department of Surgery at USU, and Dr. Julie Ann 

Freischlag, chair of the Department of Surgery at 

Johns Hopkins University, nominated Elster for 

SSA membership because of his landmark surgical career. 

 After completing a residency in general surgery 

at the National Naval Medical Center and a transplant fellowship at the National Institutes of 

Health, Elster became chief of the Transplant Division at the NNMC and later served as deputy 

head of Regenerative Medicine at the Naval Medical Research Center. 

 Furthermore, before joining USU’s faculty, Elster deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan for a sixmonth tour as chief of surgery and director of 

surgical services at the NATO Role 3 Multinational Medical Unit, where he oversaw an interdisciplinary, multinational medical team. Elster 

is also an accomplished researcher, who 

has received 

millions of dollars in grant 

money to study 

combat casualty care and 

wound failure. 

 These impressive accomplishments and 

many others 

were the basis 

for Elster’s SSA 

membership. 

 “It is an honor and a privilege to be accepted for membership 

into one of the premier surgical organizations. 

Such peer recognition is humbling,” Elster said.

Navy Capt. (Dr.) Eric Elster 

Attention all USU faculty

The Faculty Senate is currently seeking nominations for the 2014 Faculty Senate president-elect, 

secretary/treasurer, and senators. 

Interested faculty are encouraged to contact Dr. Susanne Gibbons, chair of the Faculty Senate’s Nominations and Elections Committee, via e-mail at susanne.gibbons@usuhs.edu for a candidate form. 
January 6, 2014 7

Associate dean bids farewell to USU, leaves behind impressive legacy 

By Christine Creenan-Jones, editor 

 The research portfolio at the 

Uniformed Services University 

is impressive with new scientific 

headway being made daily 

across diverse biomedical disciplines. Although this progress 

represents much collaboration, 

Army Col. (Dr.) Kent Kester, associate dean for Clinical Research in the USU School of 

Medicine, is at the helm of many 

of these gains. His behind-thescenes work to catalyze new research opportunities has greatly 

expanded USU’s investigative 

reach. 

 Unfortunately, Kester’s work 

at the university will come to an 

end when he retires next spring, 

having served more than 24 

years on active duty. 

 “My feelings are mixed because my sadness at losing him 

is tempered by my admiration 

and respect for all he has accomplished over the course of his 

distinguished military career,” 

said Dr. Arthur Kellerman, dean 

of USU’s School of Medicine. 

 Like his time at USU, Kester’s 

military career has been defined 

by many large-scale successes. 

Before arriving in Bethesda, 

Kester spent 16 years at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, where, 

among other duties, he led a 

successful vaccine development 

team for malaria, which has led 

to large-scale field trials underway in Africa involving more 

than 16,000 infants and small 

children. 

 “I like being involved in research because I’ve always enjoyed finding solutions to problems and not just accepting the 

status quo,” Kester said. 

“Tremendous good can also 

come from research, and I enjoy 

being a part of these outcomes.” 

 Kester may be a pioneer in the 

lab, but his leadership abilities 

rival his scientific acumen. 

While serving at WRAIR, Kester’s duty assignment culminated with his selection as commander. In this position leading 

the DoD’s largest biomedical research laboratory, he oversaw 

wide-ranging clinical research, 

from malaria, dengue, and HIV 

to post traumatic stress and 

traumatic brain injury. He was 

also a special consultant to the 

US Army Surgeon General before deploying to Afghanistan to 

lead a mission to evaluate infection control and infectious disease issues among deployed military troops. 

 These experiences have been 

invaluable at USU. Not only has 

Kester expanded research opportunities for billeted and nonbilleted faculty, but he also 

worked hard to simplify the regulatory processes for research, 

making it easier for USU scientists to push new boundaries. 

 “My experience at USU has 

been great. We’re a community 

here. That doesn’t happen everywhere,” he said. “When I 

leave, my positive feelings about 

this place won’t go away. I always want to be viewed as somebody who supports USU and understands the value of this incredible university.” 

Holiday spirit abounds at USU 

Army Col. (Dr.) Kent Kester 

The Admissions Office collaborated 

with the Office of General Counsel and 

the brigade leadership at the Uniformed 

Services University to organize a present drive in Dec. They collected 

enough gifts to fill 20 stockings that 

were given to enlisted members with 

young children. 

Photo by Christine Creenan-Jones 

Photo by Christine Creenan-Jones 
Final Frame 

The Uniformed Services University hosted a university-wide holiday party, Dec. 13, 

which included lunch, music and dancing, games and prizes and a visit from Santa 

Claus. 

Photos by Christine Creenan-Jones