USA SPF 90 Team to Give Free Skin Cancer Screenings

The University of South Alabama’s SPF 90 Team will provide skin cancer screenings at the Azalea Trail Run Health and Fitness Expo this Saturday, March 26, from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Mobile Civic Center Arena.

The SPF 90 Team, established in 2006 as an outreach and education program, highlights the importance of early detection of skin cancer. The acronym SPF 90 represents Skin Protection Force, with 90 representing the percentage of skin cancer that is curable with early detection.

Members of the SPF 90 Team include Dr. Carlo Contreras, assistant professor of surgery at USA; USA physicians with the department of surgery; and Mona Hagmaier, a physician assistant with a special interest in skin conditions.

Free parking will be available at the Civic Center parking lot. To view a map of the Civic Center, click here.

USA College of Medicine to Host Gumbo Chili Showdown This Weekend

The third annual Gumbo Chili Showdown will be held this Saturday, March 26, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the University of South Alabama’s track. This annual event benefits the Regan Robinson Young Scholarship Fund at the USA College of Medicine.

Ticket prices are $10 for adults, $5 for children and free for children three and under. Click here to buy your ticket. T-shirts are available today only for $15. Call (251) 471-7145 if you are interested in buying a T-shirt. For more information on the Gumbo Chili Showdown, visit http://www.gumbochili.com/.

This morning, WALA-FOX 10 interviewed Laura Jelf, USA medical student and coordinator for the Gumbo Chili Showdown. Coverage will air tonight (March 25) at 5 p.m. and March 26 at 9 a.m.

To read the article featured in the Press-Register, click here.

Surgery Chair to Give Free Community Lecture

Dr. William O. Richards, professor and chair of surgery at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine, will present a free community lecture, titled “Bariatric Surgery for Morbid Obesity,” on April 8, 2011, at 12 p.m.

The lecture, open to anyone interested in learning more about bariatric surgery for weight loss, will take place in the Mastin Professional Building Room 203 at 2451 Fillingim St. in Mobile.

Dr. Richards’s clinical interests focus on surgical treatment for Type 2 diabetes and treating motility disorders of the gastrointestinal tract using minimally invasive surgical procedures. He has performed thousands of laparoscopic procedures since 1990, including numerous laparoscopic bariatric procedures.

For more information on the lecture, call (251) 471-7413 or e-mail vheinl@usouthal.edu.

Next Week's DSS - Dr. William Stanley

The next Distinguished Scientist Seminar at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine will be presented by Dr. William Stanley, professor of cardiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

His lecture, titled “Role of Mitochondria in the Cardiac Physiology and Disease,” will take place March 31, 2011, at 4 p.m. in the Medical Sciences Building auditorium.

Dr. Stanley’s research addresses questions regarding the role of substrate metabolism and diet in the pathophysiology of heart failure and acute ischemic events using broad systems approach.

Dr. Stanley received an A.B. and Ph.D. degree at the University of California at Berkley. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California in San Francisco. He previously served on the faculty at Case Western Reserve University from 1996-2006.

Dr. Stanley currently serves as an associate editor for “American Journal of Physiology” (Heart and Circulator Physiology) and “Cardiovascular Drugs and Therapies.” In the past, he served as president of the Society for Heart and Vascular Metabolism.

For more information on Dr. Stanley’s research, visit http://medschool.umaryland.edu/facultyresearchprofile/viewprofile.aspx?id=9744.

For additional information, contact Natalie Kent at (251) 461-1548.

"A Mathematical Habitat for Analyzing Biological Sequences"

A Mathbiology and Statistics seminar, titled "A Mathematical Habitat for Analyzing Biological Sequences," will be held on March 28, 2011, from 3-4 p.m. in ILB 410 on the University of South Alabama's main campus.

The seminar will be co-presented by Dr. Can Akkoç with the USA Department of Mathematics and Statistics and Tom Johnsten with the USA School of Computer and Information Sciences.

This talk presents some results of an ongoing project focused on the development of a simple mathematical model to map biological sequences into a set of abstract mathematical spaces. In particular, the talk focuses on the development of a mathematical habitat for comparing, classifying, and analyzing various features of biological sequences, both at the ‘micro’ and ‘macro’ level.

The talk also briefly presents results of conducted experiments, directions for future work, and opportunities for collaboration with scholars from the life sciences.

For an abstract of this talk, visit http://gauss.usouthal.edu/~mbss/sem11.php.

Everybody is welcome to attend. For more information, contact (251) 460-6264.