HJLR May/Jun 2019

Healthcare Journal of little rock I  MAY / JUN 2019 39 For weekly eNews updates and to read the journal online, visit HealthcareJournalLR.com Medicine, and Intawat Nookaew, PhD, associate professor in the department. “Using the new hand-held device, in just two hours we had complete genomes of six viruses,” Wongsurawat said. “This is an exciting development that could have life-saving poten- tial as we combat future infectious disease epi- demics around the globe.” The research project’s external collaborators are from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis; University of Sao Paulo Ribeirao Preto, Brazil; Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand; and University of Louisville, Kentucky. The team’s findings were made possible by recent advances in gene sequencing technol- ogy. The team used an Oxford Nanopore Tech- nologies device called MinION, the only porta- ble real-time device available for DNA and RNA sequencing. Wongsurawat, a postdoctoral fellow who joined UAMS in 2017, said the results show that the hand-held device can be used in real-world settings where human biosamples may contain multiple viruses. The team demonstrated the sequencing from a sample containing six viruses: Mayaro virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, Chikungunya virus, Zika virus, vesicular sto- matitis Indiana virus, and Oropouche virus. Wongsurawat said the team overcame chal- lenges of rapid diagnoses of infectious disease epidemics, which are primarily driven by RNA viruses. Sequencing of RNA viruses previously required a number of steps (for reverse transcrip- tion of RNA to cDNA) that significantly slowed the process. “Using our method, we were able to skip these steps and provide real-time sequencing, which makes rapid detection and characterization of emerging pathogens possible,” Wongsurawat said. The team’s work was supported by the Helen Adams & Arkansas Research Alliance Endowed Chair, the National Institute of General Medi- cal Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) award P20GM125503, and NIH award R01AI103053. UAMS Names Cannady Director of NewWellness Program The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) has named Natalie Cannady, MEd, as the director of a new institutional wellness program intended to improve the health and well-being of employees and students. Cannady had been the manager of the UAMS Fitness Center since 2014. “For almost five years Natalie has been help- ing hundreds of Fitness Center members make improvements to their health through exercise and advice,” said UAMS Chancellor Cam Patter- son, MD, MBA. “Now her efforts will encompass the entire institution. The new wellness program is intended to replace statistical measurements with individualized support for employees and students as they seek to improve their health and life balance.” The wellness program is being developed based on the Get Healthy UAMS initiative, which launched in 2017 to promote a campus condu- cive to healthy living and working. “Learning work-life balance is not something that is generally taught in school,” said Can- nady. “We are taught from a young age to learn a profession, jump in, and give it all we have until retirement. The part that is left out is how to man- age your personal and professional life in a way that both sides can succeed and you are actu- ally happy.” “My new role will be focusing on and address- ing issues many of our employees and students face. We will be starting from the ground up building this new venture within UAMS. Instead of giving a single blanket answer to all situations, we will be looking at the different types of stresses that exist across the different professions, depart- ments and colleges,” she added. Cannady said the program will extend beyond the main Little Rock campus. “All of UAMS will be included; all sites, clinics, colleges, and facili- ties will be looked at to address what we must do David W. Ussery, PhD UAMS’ Thidathip (Tip) Wongsurawat, PhD