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The
Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) further catapults South
Carolina into the national arena of translational research. This
process will enable research to move faster from the lab bench to the
bedside, via an exclusive consortium involving the National Institutes
of Health.
This award is the result of a collaboration of many, including Kathleen Brady, M.D., Ph.D., and Perry Halushka, M.D., Ph.D.
 Kathleen
T. Brady, professor and director, Clinical Neuroscience Division;
associate dean, Clinical and Translational Research; director, South
Carolina Clinical & Translational Research Institute (SCTR).
Brady began her research career conducting basic science in drug abuse
mechanisms and received a Ph.D. in pharmacology. She moved into
clinical and translational research after finishing her psychiatry
residency in 1989. Recent research activities involve investigating
mechanistic connections between stress and substance use disorders, and
translating empirically-based treatments from academic medical centers
to front-line treatment settings.
Brady is principal investigator of the Southern National Institutes on
Drug Abuse Clinical Trials Network. This program conducts clinical
trials of substance abuse treatments in front-line treatment settings.
She is the center director for one of eleven Specialized Centers of
Research on Sex and Gender Factors Affecting Women’s Health, designed
to forge connections between basic and clinical researchers studying
gender-based differences in substance use disorders. In 2005, Brady was
appointed associate dean for clinical and translational research, and
director of the General Clinical Research Center. In 2006, she became
director of the SCTR Institute to pursue CTSA, the successor program to
GCRC.
From 1994-2004, she was director of the Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship
Program and continues to mentor post-doctoral fellows and faculty. In
2001, Brady received the Betty Ford award for contributions to research
on women’s issues in substance abuse. She is currently president of the
American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry.
 Perry V. Halushka, professor, pharmacology and medicine; dean, College of Graduate Studies; co-director, SCTR.
Halushka received his Ph.D. in 1967 and his medical degree in 1970 from
the University of Chicago. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the
National Institutes of Health (NIH), he joined the MUSC faculty.
Halushka helped write MUSC’s first General Clinical Research Center
grant in 1974, the predecessor of the current CTSA program.
In 1987, he was appointed director of the Medical Scientist Training
Program (MSTP). He has built MSTP from six to 50 students and achieved
programmatic NIH funding, making it one of the country’s more elite
programs. In 2000, he was named dean of the College of Graduate
Studies. As dean, Halushka has increased the number of training slots
for graduate students from two to 64.
Halushka is internationally known for his research in the role of
prostaglandins and thromboxanes in platelet functions and
cardiovascular disease. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed
scientific articles and more than 50 book chapters and articles. He has
received many awards, notably the first Pharmaceutical Research and
Manufacturers of America Foundation Clinical Pharmacology Award in
Excellence.
In addition, he is a practicing physician serving difficult-to-treat
hypertensive patients for more than 30 years. Halushka is also an
attending physician at the Ralph H. Johnson Veterans Administration
Medical Center in Charleston.
Friday, July 17, 2009
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