Presidential doubleheader draws U.S. Hispanic audiences to UM again

Univision’s Jorge Ramos, M.A. ’96, and Maria Elena Salinas interview President Barack Obama at UM. Photo by Andrew Innerarity

On the eve of the 2012 election, Hispanic media leader Univision selected the University of Miami as its co-host for back-to-back interviews with the Democrat and Republican presidential contenders. Two days in a row, on September 19 and 20 at UM’s BankUnited Center Fieldhouse, the popular anchors of the news program Noticias moderated one-on-one discussions with Governor Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama, respectively.

During the Q&A, titled “El Gran Encuentro” (“The Great Meeting”), Maria Elena Salinas and Jorge Ramos, M.A. ’96, asked tough questions about education, the economy, global security, and, most pointedly, immigration. The candidates, who received translations of questions posed in Spanish, responded in English, with translations provided for viewers. Ramos and Salinas also moderated questions that came from audience members and Facebook followers.

This double-candidate coup was likely something no other university could claim during Election 2012, Rudy Fernandez, UM vice president for government affairs, told the Miami Hurricane.

About 300 UM students and other guests had the chance to attend the forums, which were also streamed live online and then aired in prime time on Univision across the country. The Nielsen Company reports that each “Gran Encuentro” broadcast reached more than four million viewers.

The University previously partnered with Univision in 2007, hosting two presidential debates during the primaries.

President Obama “El Gran Encuentro”

For the Spanish-language version, click here.

Mitt Romney “El Gran Encuentro”

For the Spanish-language version, click here.

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Miami Project begins FDA-approved Schwann cell trial for spinal cord injury patients

W. Dalton Dietrich, scientific director of The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis Photo by Donna Victor

Schwann Cells Courtesy Miller School of Medicine

With 27 years of promising research came new hope for the new year. In December doctors at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis performed the first-ever Food and Drug Administration-approved Schwann cell transplantation on a patient with a recent spinal cord injury.

The procedure was performed by University of Miami doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital five months after the FDA green-lighted its Phase 1 clinical trial designed to evaluate the safety and feasibility of transplanting human Schwann cells, which are found in the peripheral nervous system.

The Miami Project, a Center of Excellence at the Miller School of Medicine, will enroll eight participants with acute thoracic spinal cord injury in the trial, which is part of the Christine E. Lynn Clinical Trials Initiative. They will be followed for a year post-surgery and then monitored for four more years under a separate clinical protocol.

“This trial and these first patients in this trial specifically are extremely important to our mission of curing paralysis,” says neurosurgeon Barth Green, co-founder and chair of The Miami Project, and professor and chair of neurological surgery. “This achievement reaffirms that the tens of millions of dollars and the incalculable work hours were well invested in this first-of-a-kind human Schwann cell project.”

Allan Levi, professor of neurological surgery, orthopaedics, and rehabilitation, and James Guest, associate professor of neurological surgery, conducted the historic procedure several weeks after the patient’s Schwann cells were harvested from tissue obtained from a nerve in one leg and then grown for several weeks in a culturing facility.

W. Dalton Dietrich, scientific director of The Miami Project and professor of neurological surgery, neurology, and cell biology and anatomy, says the trial’s successful completion “will lay the critical foundation for future cell-based therapies to target spinal cord injuries.”

Miami Project: miamiproject.miami.edu/page.aspx?pid=1048

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