Kahn Foundation Gift Expands Cardiovascular Study

U-M, Israel’s Technion University to collaborate

The U-M Cardiovascular Center has received a generous gift from The D. Dan and Betty Kahn Foundation to establish the D. Dan and Betty Kahn Cardiovascular Medical Engineering Research Fund. The fund will support research by physicians, scientists and engineers doing promising work in biomedicine and bioengineering.

These new collaborations will take place across continents and in dedicated laboratory space at the U-M to be named in honor of D. Dan and Betty Kahn. Initial work will focus on understanding and treating irregular heartbeats, called arrhythmias, with future work expanding into other areas at the interface between heart and blood vessel disease and engineering.

“I have long held the belief that the University of Michigan is one of the great medical research institutions in the world. I also believe it is important for the Michigan economy to support institutions that are based in Michigan,” says D. Dan Kahn, of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. “This gift to the University of Michigan to support heart research builds on the gift I made in 2004 to honor the memory of my wife, Betty, and supports the great work being done by the Michigan Cardiovascular Center.” The 2004 gift led to the naming of the D. Dan and Betty Kahn Patient and Family Reception Area at the center. Betty Kahn died in June 2004. Her husband made the gift in gratitude for the care she received from Kim Eagle, M.D., a director of the Cardiovascular Center, and Scott Gitlin, M.D., associate professor of internal medicine, hematology/oncology.

Through Kahn’s vision, two world-class institutions — the University of Michigan and Israel’s Technion University — will join forces to potentially transform the ability to diagnose, treat and prevent cardiovascular disease, which is the world’s leading killer. Scientists working in Technion’s D. Dan Kahn Mechanical Engineering Building will collaborate with physicians, scientists, and bioengineers at the U-M’s new D. Dan and Betty Kahn Cardiovascular Medical Engineering laboratories. The space is expected to help realize a vision of the U-M Cardiovascular Center to be the best academic heart and vascular center in the world.

In recognition of the foundation’s gift, the 300-seat auditorium at the Biomedical Science Research Building will be named in honor of the Kahns. With a striking architectural design of glass and curves, the BSRB is the largest research facility on campus. Its spirit of cross-disciplinary research collaboration matches the vision of D. Dan Kahn and this gift.

The Kahns have changed their community with contributions to the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit, United Jewish Foundation of Metropolitan Detroit, ORT America and other Jewish community organizations throughout metropolitan Detroit.
—Shantell Kirkendoll

The Unsinkable Ashley Park

A few days before Christmas 2006, Ashley Park received something totally unexpected. It had no fancy wrappings, no festive bow. The high school sophomore was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

Park was immediately admitted to U-M’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, where she lived for most of the next seven months undergoing five rounds of intensive chemotherapy, each lasting six weeks with only a few days’ respite at home between rounds. She lost her hair. Her compromised immune system kept her confined to her room to limit exposure to others. Family and friends organized to spend time with her so she wouldn’t be alone, and Mott’s Child and Family Life program staff brought crafts and movies to her. The Mott Family Network, which provides a computer for every patient room, allowed her to stay connected with friends.

By the following fall, the indomitable teenager was back at Pioneer High School and landed the lead in the Theater Guild’s production of “Thoroughly Modern Millie.” She went on to graduate this year with a 4.0 grade point average, despite her ordeal and an entire semester missed. “I came full circle,” she says, “right back to normal life.”

Park was the featured patient speaker at the 2009 Mott Golf Classic, which, for 36 years, has combined golf outings with a dinner, live and silent auctions, and the personal testament of those who have experienced Mott’s collaborative caregiving firsthand. Says Park: “The effort at Mott to include the entire family, knowing that it was a trying time for everyone, was a great philosophy carried out by all the caregivers.”

Accepted into the Honors Program and the U-M Department of Musical Theatre, with scholarships, Park most recently wowed audiences as the lead character in Pioneer’s production of “Miss Saigon.” “I feel really blessed,” she says. “I put my best into everything, and everything is coming together.”

Classic Care

Sponsored by local, state and national businesses, the Mott Golf Classic since 1973 has advanced pediatric medicine and enhanced the patient experience for countless children and their families. Funds raised by the classic have enabled the Mott Family Network and provided a $1 million commitment to a 12-room Ronald McDonald House within the new Mott Hospital, scheduled to open in 2012, among many other Mott programs and services. The coordinated work and sponsorship that go into each year’s classic mirror the team-based, coordinated care patients and their families have long appreciated from Mott Children’s Hospital, consistently ranked as one of the best in the nation.

‘We Had to do Something’

Russell Dobson’s final illness started in his 70s with small signs, easily explained away. “He was forgetful,” recalls his sister, Angela Dobson Welch, of Ann Arbor. “Sometimes he’d go someplace and didn’t know where he was.”

Soon, though, it became clear that something was going terribly wrong. The diagnosis: Alzheimer’s disease. Russell Dobson died in 2001. As if that wasn’t enough, their brother Bill died of the disease in 2003. Welch was a loving and compassionate witness to each of her brothers’ long decline and death. She and her husband, Lyndon Welch, a retired architect, saw and felt the frustration of family members powerless to help. And they vowed to do something about it.

They established the Angela Dobson Welch and Lyndon Welch Endowed Research Fund in the Department of Neurology and plan to augment the fund to create a research professorship.

Russell and Bill Dobson’s struggles with Alzheimer’s spurred the Welches to learn more about the disease — which seemed to strike the brothers randomly. “We cannot trace it in our family one little bit,” says Angela Welch, who adds that they’ve lost friends to Alzheimer’s as well. “It’s such a ghastly disease, we had to do something to help get rid of it.” Welch’s third brother, Jack Dobson, died in 2007 of other causes. He and his wife, Alice, have also generously supported the U−M.

Though neither of the Welches went to school at Michigan, their deep respect for the Medical School is evident in the creation of the Welch Professorship which will support research regarding the causes, treatments and potential cure of Alzheimer’s and related neurodegenerative disorders. —WH

The new C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Women’s Hospital continues to grow, changing the Ann Arbor skyline. The 1.1 million square-foot facility, scheduled for completion in the fall of 2012, will include 13 pediatric operating rooms, four pediatric surgical procedure rooms, four Caesarean section suites, and 348 private inpatient beds, including 50 single-room maternity-care beds.

Professorships Recently Inaugurated

William J. Fry (M.D., 1952, Residency 1957), a pioneer of vascular surgery and a nationally recognized medical educator, was honored February 16 with the inauguration of the William J. Fry Professorship in Surgery. An educator for more than 30 years who died in 2007, Fry taught medical students, residents and staff to never lose their curiosity about medicine, to strive for excellence, and to have compassion for patients. Paul G. Gauger, M.D. (Residency 1998), an associate professor of surgery and medical education, is the first Fry Professor.

A diagnosis of both rheumatoid arthritis and lupus in the family of Michael and Marcy Klein led them to the U-M and the work of W. Joseph McCune, M.D. (Residency 1978). The Kleins first established a research fund, and then added the Michael H. and Marcia S. Klein Professorship in Rheumatic Diseases to make a strong impact on the diagnosis, treatment and eventual cures for rheumatic diseases, especially lupus. McCune, a professor of internal medicine and associate chief for clinical programs in the Division of Rheumatology, was installed as the first Klein Professor on May 13.

In 2006, an anonymous donor endowed the Ruth Heyn Professorship in Pediatric Oncology in honor of a pioneering U-M physician. Heyn came to the U-M in 1951 to oversee the care of children with blood diseases. In 1966, she authored the first manuscript on the use of vincristine in the treatment of childhood leukemia. It soon became clear that chemotherapy, often in tandem with surgery and radiotherapy, could be a valuable addition. On June 4, James L.M. Ferrara, M.D., a professor of pediatrics and communicable diseases and of internal medicine and director of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Program, was installed as the first Heyn Professor.

The H. Marvin Pollard Professorship in Gastroenterology was inaugurated June 15 and honors a longtime U-M gastroenterologist once tabbed “a senior statesman of medicine.” The professorship was established through the Shirley M. McLaughlin Trust; Pollard had treated her as a patient, and he also referred her to colleagues for treatment of a benign brain tumor. M. Bishr Omary, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of molecular and integrative physiology and of internal medicine, is the first Pollard Professor.
—KB