Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport

Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport (LSUHSC-Shreveport) is the academic center for medicine and medical research in North Louisiana. It is located in Shreveport and is part of the Louisiana State University System. The medical school opened in 1969. One of its founders was Dr. Joe E. Holoubek (1915-2007) of Shreveport, a clinical professor of medicine and author originally from Nebraska.

Organizations

* Biomedical Research Foundation (Biomedical Research Institute).
* Feist-Weiller Cancer Center
* LSU Hospital.
* LSU Medical School in Shreveport.
* LSU School of Allied Health Professions.
* LSU School of Graduate Studies.

Biomedical Research Institute

Opened in February 1994, the Biomedical Research Institute is the name given to the building that houses the Biomedical Research Foundation. The official name of the building is the Virginia K. Shehee Biomedical Research Institute. The building is 10 stories tall with over 160,000 square feet of floor space dedicated to 56 research laboratories. The laboratory facilities contain core research space for monoclonal antibody production, oligonucleotide and peptide synthesis, gene cloning, DNA sequencing, high performance liquid chromatography, tissue culture, positron emission tomography, magnetic resonance spectroscopy and electron microscopy.

The Biomedical Research Foundation also funds the Science and Medicine Academic Research Training (S.M.A.R.T.) Program. The S.M.A.R.T. program picks around 10 high school seniors every year who have an interest in the medical and scientific research field from the region to perform research in laboratories. The students start their work during the summer after their junior year. This continues into the senior school year where 2 out of 6 academic hours are reserved for work at the labs. The students of the S.M.A.R.T. program enter into various competitions such as the [http://www.siemens-foundation.org/en/competition.htm Siemens Science & Technology Competition] and the [http://www.sciserv.org/Sts/ Intel Science Talent Search] with research papers they have written based on their own research.

Feist-Weiller Cancer Center

The State of Louisiana Board of Regents created the Feist-Weiller Cancer center in 1993, and to this day, it remains an integral part of the LSU Health Sciences Center in Shreveport. The center was originally known as LSU's Center of Excellence in Cancer Research, Treatment, and Education.

The reason for the creation of the Cancer Center was two-fold: first, the population cared for by the LSU Hospital would too often present with late stages of cancer (the population was plagued with high rates of poverty; low literacy and low levels of education; and with little access to modern approaches to prevention, detection and treatment of cancer); second, although the area containted excellent scientific approaches to cancer problems, there were relatively few local translational cancer researchers, and very little interaction between the clinical arena and the basic science arena.

The Center was renamed to the Feist-Weiller Center in 1997 after donations made to honor the Feist and Weiller families.

Medical Critical Care

Under the direction of visionary leaders, Steve Conrad and Laurie Grier, the MICU saves lives daily and also does lotsa clinical research. A beacon of hope at LSUMC, the MICU is a leader in treatement of shock, resuscitation, emergency medicine and ventilator managemet.

ee also

* Louisiana State University System.
* LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans.

References

* [http://www.sh.lsuhsc.edu/index.html LSU Health Sciences Center Shreveport Website.]
* [http://www.biomed.org/index.cfm Biomedical Research Foundation Website.]
* [http://www.feistweiller.org/index.cfm Feist-Weiller Cancer Center Website.]