Dr. Garcia to Serve on Institute of Medicine Committee
Francisco García, MD, MPH, director of the UA Center of Excellence in Women’s Health and co-director of the Cancer Disparities Institute of the Arizona Cancer Center, has been appointed to serve on the Committee on Preventative Services for Women of the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine (IOM). This committee will be making recommendations for services to be covered by the U.S. Department of Health as part of healthcare reform.The expert committee will review what preventive services are necessary for women’s health and well-being and should be considered in the development of comprehensive guidelines for preventive services for women. The committee also will provide guidance on a process for regularly updating the preventive screenings and services to be considered.
Dr. García is section chair of Family and Child Health in the Division of Health Promotion Sciences of the UA Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and is a UA Distinguished Outreach Professor of public health, obstetrics and gynecology, pharmacy and Mexican-American studies. He is the immediate past director of and principal investigator for the Arizona Hispanic Center of Excellence and is the former director of the UA College of Medicine Division of Gynecology. His research expertise is in the area of pre-malignant cervical disease and human papilloma virus infection and the evaluation of new technologies and therapeutics for cervical cancer precursors. He also has a longstanding interest in the health of women on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Discovery Channel Films UA Researcher on Consciousness
What is consciousness? That’s a question Stuart Hameroff, MD, has studied for more than 20 years as a professor of anesthesiology and psychology and director of the Center forConsciousness Studies at the University of Arizona. It’s also the focus of a spring 2011 episode of Through the Worm Hole, a Discovery Channel television series that was in Tucson this week to interview Dr. Hameroff. Hosted by Morgan Freeman, the show explores the deepest mysteries of existence -- the questions that have puzzled humanity for eons. What are we made of? What does it mean to be conscious? What can science tell us about these age-old questions?
Plenty, says Dr. Hameroff. Recent research into the neurological workings of the brain have led Dr. Hameroff and his collaborator, English physicist and professor Sir Roger Penrose, to develop a theory of consciousness surrounding “microtubules,” part of the cytoskeleton within the brain. Microtubules transport molecules, control the cell’s movement, growth and shape and may be capable of quantum processing, Dr. Hameroff believes. Their theory of consciousness, called Orchestrated Objective Reduction or Orch OR, is a hotly debated topic among consciousness researchers.
The Center for Consciousness Studies, which originated at the UA in 1998 and now resides in the UA Department of Anesthesiology, brings together perspectives of philosophy, cognitive sciences, neuroscience, social sciences, medicine, physical sciences and the arts and humanities to move towards a better understanding of human consciousness. The Center is organizing a symposium Toward a Science of Consciousness at Stockholm University, Sweden in early May 2011. Details at www.consciousness.arizona.edu.