At the 2016 Summer Olympics, UM alumni, student-athletes, and coaches go for the gold.

Divers Sam Dorman, B.S.M.E. ’15, and Marcela Marić, swimmer Heather Arseth, B.S. ’16, soccer goalie Catalina Perez, and track and field standouts Murielle Ahoure, A.B. ’11, and Alysha Newman, B.S. ’16, are competing for their respective countries at the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics. Read more about their achievements and those of three Miami coaches.

Also in Rio de Janeiro, former University of Miami rower Aisha Chow, B.S. ’99, is headed to the quarterfinals of the women’s single sculls, representing her home country of Trinidad and Tobago. Chow had to wait an extra day to compete for the second time at the Rio Olympics after inclement weather forced the women’s single sculls repechage to be postponed on Sunday.

The wait was worth it as she earned one of two qualifying spots in Repechage 1, finishing second with a time of 8:04.91. Chow’s second place finish in her repechage allowed her to advance to the quarterfinals.

The past few days have been filled with excitement for Chow. On Saturday, she made history in Brazil, becoming the first rower from Trinidad and Tobago to compete in the Olympics.

Chow, who’s full name is Felice Aisha Chow, was in Heat 6 of the women’s single sculls hosted at Lagoa Stadium. Racing out of Lane 2, she finished fifth in Heat 6 of the women’s single sculls with a time of 8:31.83.

A member of Miami’s rowing team from 1995-1999, Chow arrived at Miami on an academic scholarship before trying out rowing as a novice. She quickly found success and was thrust into the top varsity boat as a strong, but inexperienced freshman.

In her time at Miami, Chow helped the Hurricanes excel at notable regattas, including Head of the Hooch, and helped the team become one of the top programs at the Florida Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship. As a junior, Chow was part of the Hurricanes’ varsity eight that won a title at the Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Association championship in 1997-98.

A trauma surgeon from UHealth – the University of Miami Health System is leading Rio’s emergency health services during the Games, so it’s no surprise that UHealth and the Miller School have supplied a number of medical volunteers.

One of those volunteers who recently returned from Brazil is Lee Kaplan, a sports medicine physician and orthopedic surgeon for UHealth. On duty when French gymnast Samir Ait Said suffered a tibia and fibula fracture during the vault competition, Kaplan played a role in helping to stabilize the young man’s leg.

Other UM scholars and researchers are offering their insights on this summer’s games—from the Zika virus to polluted waterways, and from Brazil’s political upheaval to fearful athletes skipping the event, which continues through August 21. Read more.

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Outpatient center coming to Gables campus

The next addition to the University of Miami Health System will rise on the Coral Gables campus. Groundbreaking on UHealth at Coral Gables—a multi-story, 200,000-square-foot ambulatory center at 5550 Ponce de Leon Boulevard—is slated for this summer, with completion expected in 2016.

“The goal is to bring the expertise of our outstanding Miller School physicians and researchers to more patients,” says Pascal J. Goldschmidt, senior vice president for Medical Affairs, dean of the Miller School of Medicine, and CEO of UHealth. “Opening this facility gives our students, faculty, staff, and neighbors in Coral Gables and surrounding areas easy access to UHealth’s exceptional care.”

That care will be provided by doctors from Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and No. 1-ranked Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, as well as urgent care, outpatient surgery, men’s and women’s health, physical therapy, diagnostic imaging, radiation oncology, and other UHealth subspecialties.

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Heart Alert

Early detection is key when it comes to heart attacks. Now the University of Miami Health System is conducting a clinical trial on a device designed to track significant changes in the heart’s electrical signal and alert patients to seek medical attention—even if they aren’t experiencing obvious or typical symptoms. The investigational study of the AngelMed Guardian monitor will play a significant role in FDA approval. The subcutaneous device connected inside of the heart would be able to detect any cardiac changes that indicate a heart attack is about to occur, says Claudia A. Martinez Bermudez, who heads this UHealth clinical trial. Initial studies suggest the monitor could help reduce the time it takes potential heart attack patients to get to a hospital from the current average of two to three hours to just 20 minutes.

Crash Diet

Can stressful headlines expand your waistline? That’s the conclusion of a study Juliano Laran, assistant professor of marketing in the School of Business Administration, conducted with doctoral student Anthony Salerno. Their research, published in the February edition of the journal Psychological Science, suggests that bad news triggers a “live for today” impulse that leads people to eat more—and to eat higher-calorie foods with the expectation the sustenance will last longer. Subjects subconsciously primed with information about adversity during a mock taste test consumed nearly 40 percent more high-calorie food than those primed with neutral messages. Within the adversity information group, those asked to taste a “higher-calorie candy” ate nearly 70 percent more compared with those in the group offered a “lower-calorie” version of the candy to try (in reality, both received regular M&Ms). The neutral message control groups consumed roughly the same amount of chocolate, regardless of purported calorie content. Laran says it wasn’t taste but “a longing for calories” that caused the reactions.

Strokes & Stems

The first two stroke patients have been enrolled in a phase 2 clinical trial of a revolutionary new treatment for ischemic stroke being conducted by the University of Miami at Jackson Memorial Hospital. The trial, using a patient’s own bone marrow stem cells, is the first intra-arterial stroke stem cell trial in the U.S., and the two patients at UM at Jackson are the first in Florida to participate. The trial, being led by Dileep Yavagal, assistant professor of neurology and neurological surgery, is examining the efficacy of ALD-401, derived from bone marrow and manufactured by Aldagen, to repair and regenerate tissue following an ischemic event.

HIV Discovery

Left untreated, HIV almost always progresses to AIDS in humans. Yet about one in 300 HIV-infected people control the virus after an initial burst of viral replication, even without medications. The mystery of how these individuals, known as “elite controllers,” suppress the rapidly adapting virus is answered in a seminal study published in the journal Nature. David I. Watkins, professor of pathology, and his team discovered that elite controllers generate a “killer cell” CD8+ T response against a few small regions of the virus, successfully controlling it. Watkins adds that understanding this mechanism may shed light on how to develop an effective HIV/AIDS vaccine. He and colleagues in Brazil are working on a vaccine with support from a $10 million National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases grant.

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